Darcy Ballantyne is an assistant professor in the Department of English at Toronto Metropolitan University, where she teaches in the Black Studies Minor. Her research interests include Black Canadian literatures and cultures, literatures of the Americas, diaspora studies, the short story, and autoethnography and memoir.
Louise Browne is a co-host of the podcast Adoption: The Making of Me and a passionate advocate for adoptees. With hundreds of thousands of followers worldwide, she and co-host Sarah Reinhardt create space for adoptees to explore identity, connection, and lifelong self-discovery. A Colorado native, Louise was adopted days after her birth in 1968 and raised amid sealed records and unanswered questions. She holds a master’s in education, has worked across education, nonprofits, startups, and corporate spaces, and is a mother, writer, and animal lover living in California with her husband, Bill, and their dog, Gracie.
Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello is the author of Hour of the Ox (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016), winner of the Donald Hall Prize for Poetry. She co-translated Yi Won’s The World’s Lightest Motorcycle (Zephyr Press, 2021), which won the 2022 Translation Grand Prize from the Literature Translation Institute of Korea. Marci has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Knight Foundation, and American Literary Translators Association, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, Poets & Writers, and more. She’s co-founder of the Adoptee Literary Festival and program manager and marketing supervisor for Miami Book Fair. www.MarciCalabretta.com
Aimee Seiff Christian writes memoir and creative nonfiction. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Poets & Writers, The Rumpus, Hippocampus, Pidgeonholes, Atticus Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, and more. She’s a writing instructor and developmental editor and is querying her memoir, Nobody’s Daughter, about adoption and identity. Aimee is from New York City and lives in Massachusetts with her family. Find out more at aimeechristian.net.
Lisa “L.C.” Coppola is an adoptee, writer, therapist, and founder of Coppola Counseling & Consultation, where she supports adults navigating identity, addiction recovery, DNA discoveries, and the emotional terrain of search and reunion. Drawing on her own lived experience as an adoptee in long-term recovery and more than a decade of clinical work, L.C. centers healing through awareness, storytelling, and connection. She’s the author of Voices Unheard: A Reflective Journal for Adult Adoptees and has created community programs and workshops that honor adoptee voices and journeys. Her debut novel, Monster Flower, is scheduled for release in Spring 2027. Learn more at www.coppolacounselingconsultation.com.
Erin Cosentino is a high school special educator, a clinical social worker, and founder of Hiraeth Hope & Healing, a nonprofit that supports individuals navigating identity disruption due to adoption, donor conception, late-discovery adoption, and NPE (not-parent-expected) discoveries. She facilitates healing-centered retreats that offer space for truth-telling, grief processing, and reconnection through community and story. Erin writes and speaks about disenfranchised grief, ambiguous loss, and the long-term emotional impact of family secrets. Her work is grounded in the belief that truth deserves breath, and healing is possible when people are no longer left to carry their stories alone. www.hiraethhopeandhealing.com.
Dawn Davies is the author of Mothers of Sparta: A Memoir in Pieces (Flatiron Books, 2018), which won the Florida Book Award Gold Medal for General Nonfiction and the GLCA New Writers Award for Creative Nonfiction. Her essays and stories have been Pushcart Special Mentions and Best American notables. Her work can be found in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, The Missouri Review, Poetry Northwest, The Alaska Review, Narrative, Fourth Genre, and elsewhere. She lives on a farm in South Carolina. Visit her at authordawndavies.com and find her on Instagram @dawnlandia.
Kara Rubinstein Deyerin is the founder of Right to Know, a nonprofit empowering those affected by misattributed parentage, adoption, donor conception, and DNA surprises through education, support, advocacy, and community engagement. A storyteller, public speaker, and policy advocate, she’s testified nationwide, passed fertility fraud legislation, and built initiatives advancing truth and transparency in family building while centering the best interest of the child. She’s the author of My Re-Birthday Book, host of the podcast Unraveling Me, and publisher with Black Sheep Library. Kara’s DNA surprise shapes her work, blending personal truth to create systemic change. www.RightToKnow.us, www.KaraDeyerin.com
Kama Einhorn is an Emmy-winning Sesame Street writer and developer of children’s media. She’s written more than 60 books for children and teachers, published by Scholastic, Random House, Simon & Schuster, and HarperCollins, as well as a wide variety of multimedia content for The New York Times, Nickelodeon, Best Friends Animal Society, and The Humane Society. Kama holds a master’s degree in literacy education from the University of California at Berkeley. She lives in Brooklyn. Visit her at www.kamaeinhorn.com.
Brian Gresko is a writer, illustrator, and literary journalist based in Brooklyn. Brian co-founded and directs Writing Co-Lab, a teaching cooperative, and is the co-host of Pete’s Reading Series, Brooklyn’s longest running live literary venue. Brian’s latest book is You Must Go On: 30 Inspirations on Writing and Creativity, which you can learn more about at www.briangresko.com.
Ona Gritz’s memoir, Everywhere I Look, received the Clara Johnson Award in Women’s Literature, the Pencraft Best Book Award in Memoir, the Readers’ Choice Gold Award for Best Adult Book, and was named an Independent Book Review 2024 Must-Read, a Kirkus Review “Indie Worth Discovering,” and the StoryTrade Nonfiction Book of the Year. Her essays have appeared in Hippocampus Magazine, Brevity, Salon, The New York Times, and elsewhere. Ona also writes for children and teens. Her 2024 verse novel, Take a Sad Song, was selected as one of Kirkus Reviews’ best YA titles of the year. Learn more at www.onagritz.com.
Lisa Grunberger Temple University professor Lisa Grunberger is a first-generation American artist. Her poetry book, For the Future of Girls, was nominated for an Eric Hoffer Independent Book Award. A widely published poet and essayist, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal, The Southern Review, Newsday, and MannaSongs: Stories of Jewish Culture and Heritage (ELJ 2025). Her play, ALMOST PREGNANT (Next Stage Press), about Jewish identity, motherhood and assisted reproductive technologies, premiered at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. She’s working on a memoir called Me and My Makers: A Memoir of Genes, Jews and Love.
Michèle Dawson Haber writes about family secrets, identity, and step adoption. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Manifest Station, Salon, Oldster Magazine, and The Brevity Blog. She’s appeared on NPR’s This American Life, CBC’s Tapestry, and other popular podcasts. Her Substack, Who’s My Daddy?, explores the links between identity and having one unknown birth parent, and she also interviews writers for Hippocampus Magazine. Michèle is a ceramic artist and worker advocate in her non-writing hours. She lives in Toronto, Canada. www.micheledhaber.com.
Susan Devan Harness is a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, a cultural anthropologist, and author of the multiple award-winning book Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption. Her research, writing, and speaking has informed the child placement community and beyond of the very real and problematic issues of transracial/interracial adoption. She’s appeared on the TEDxMileHigh stage and has been a guest on many podcasts and public radio programs. Susan holds a Master of Arts in Anthropology and a Master of Arts in English, both from Colorado State University, where she’s an affiliate of the Department of Anthropology and Geography.
Laura Jenkins has been a journalist for more than three decades. She spent the first 10 years of her career in the music sector, writing features and reviews for magazines, newspapers, and various online publications. After earning a bachelor’s degree in English, Writing and Rhetoric from St. Edwards University in 2010, she pivoted to literary and lifestyle features, book reviews, travel writing, and editorial photography. She lives in the Texas Hill Country with her husband, Craig, and their menagerie of rescue animals—a mini Aussie and two cats. She’s working on a memoir. Find her atwww.laurajenkinswriter.com and https://spillitall.substack.com/
joj (them/them) is an Iceland-based American nonbinary writer of creative nonfiction–memoir, essay, and flash/prose poetry. They are a self-described collector of unused graduate degrees, the most recent (2020) an MA in creative writing from Ball State University. Their work explores themes of place, class, queerness, parenthood, infant loss, plant medicine, and the nomadic/peripatetic. Their writing has appeared in Insider, Parents, Yes!, Five Minutes, and The Matador Network. They were recently appointed director of Nes Artist Residence in Skagaströnd, Iceland. www.Jojthefirst.com
Gabrielle Ariella Kaplan-Mayer is an author, educator and spiritual director who works 1:1 with people, helping them find their inner wisdom through words. She’s the director of virtual content and programs for ritualwell.org. She writes a weekly Substack with creative prompts and spiritual practices called Journey with the Seasons. Gabrielle is working on a memoir about intuition and ancestor connections. Find her work at www,gabriellekaplanmayer.com.
Sarah Leibov is a writer, storyteller and advocate helping to save lives by inspiring audiences to pursue genetic screening. Her personal essays have appeared in HuffPost, Newsweek, Tablet and other publications. Her memoir in progress is based on a 2012 article about coping with her younger sister’s death from Tay-Sachs disease. “Dancing with My Sister” was published in Jewish Chicago magazine and led to her role speaking about the importance of carrier screening for the Norton & Elaine Sarnoff Center for Jewish Genetics. Sarah is a Feldenkrais Method creative movement instructor and enjoys sharing her stories onstage and online at www.sarahleibov.com.
Kerry Levisky lives in Dingmans Ferry, Pennsylvania, where she works in caregiving and draws on years of experience as an EMT. She’s also an associate private investigator in New Jersey. A DNA test changed her life and revealed that she was an NPE (not parent expected), reshaping everything she thought she knew about family. She writes at the intersection of truth-telling and tenderness—about grief, belonging, and the strange, brave work of rebuilding her story in midlife—without losing her humor or her heart. She is a mother of five and a longtime advocate for others navigating the NPE experience.
Nina B. Lichtenstein, PhD, MFA, is a native of Oslo, Norway. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, HuffPost, Lilith, Full Grown People, Tablet Magazine, Brevity Blog, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, and AARP’s The Ethel, among other places, and in several anthologies. Her memoir, Body: My Life in Parts, was released by Vine Leaves Press in 2025. She is the founder and director of Maine Writers Studio and the co-founder and co-editor of In a Flash Lit Mag. She lives in Maine, where her husband, kayak, bike, yoga, and skis keep her (somewhat) sane. Find out more about Nina’s work at https://www.ninalichtenstein.com/.
Liz Prato is the author of the recent novel Purgatoire, as well as two books of creative nonfiction: Volcanoes, Palm Trees, and Privilege: Essays on Hawai‘ i, a New York Times Top Summer Read and finalist for the Oregon Book Award, and Kids inAmerica: A Gen X Reckoning. She’s also the author of the short story collection Baby’s on Fire. Liz is editor at large at ForestAvenue Press. She lives for independent bookstores, literary community, and palm trees. www.lizprato.com
Danna Schmidt is a ceremonialist, medical aid in dying (MAiD) volunteer, and adoptee living in the Pacific Northwest. She writes about grief and loss, adoption, and ceremony. Her writing has appeared in The Sun and Severance magazines, Raven Chronicles, Bending Genres, Okay Donkey, and Adoptee Voices, as well as in Maggie Oman Shannon’s Crafting Love: Sharing Our Hearts Through the Work of Our Hands. Danna is seeking representation for her debut memoir about family secrets, the prices we pay to keep them, and the power of wishcrafting to shapeshift our lives.
Amanda Serenyi’s world turned upside down when, at age 33, she learned she was donor conceived. A 23andMe test helped her find her biological father, countless cousins, and, over time, four half-siblings (so far!). Her unpublished memoir, Family of Strangers, tells the full story. When not writing, Amanda consults with nonprofits to untangle their accounting messes and serves on the board of two environmentally-focused organizations. She and her husband split their time between the mountainous Eastern Sierra and the San Francisco Bay Area, just a few miles from where she was conceived. Her website is www.amandaserenyi.com.
Emily Sinagra was born at the Salvation Army Hospital for Unwed Mothers in 1958. After four months in foster care, she was placed in a closed adoption. Thirty-three years later, she found her birth parents and continues to process the ramifications of adoption, relinquishment and reunion. She shares some of her writing on Substack at www.emilysinagra.substack.com.
Eve Sturges is a licensed psychotherapist and host of the Everything’s Relative podcast. Her genetic identity was upended in 2018 by a phone call from the father she’d never met; since then, she’s dedicated much of her creative and professional work to the DNA-surprise community. Her process journal, Who Even Am I Anymore, was the first of its kind for anyone affected by shocking DNA-test results. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, her kids, three domesticated rats, and one dog, where she’s working on a documentary about her personal journey and eating peanut butter from the jar. www.evesturges.com
Kimberly Warner is a filmmaker, author, and patient advocate whose work explores how healing and brokenness can coexist. She is the author of Unfixed: A Memoir of Family, Mystery, and the Currents that Carry You Home and founder of Unfixed, a multimedia production company amplifying stories of people living with chronic illness and disability. Her award-winning films, mini-series, essays, and podcasts weave beauty from paradox, inviting audiences to see uncertainty as a place of belonging. She lives in rural Oregon with her husband, tending a small farm between creative projects and practicing the quiet art of paying attention. www.unfixedmedia.com, www.kimberlywarnerauthor.com
Alesia Weiss is a retired nurse, veteran, and mother whose life experience has shaped her commitment to service and healing. She’s the founder of NPE Navigation and NPE Nest, organizations dedicated to supporting individuals navigating the NPE (not parent expected) journey, or, as she calls it, new person evolving. As a post-NPE herself, she’s moved through the profound shock of DNA discovery and into recovery. Drawing on her clinical background, military service, and lived experience, she’s helped thousands process the experience, find stability, and build resilience. Her work centers on compassion, clarity, and guiding people forward with understanding and hope. Reach her at www.nursingfornpes.com.
Christine Wolf is a trauma-informed writing coach, instructor, and developmental editor shaped by her own reckoning with family history. A DNA test in midlife revealed a previously unknown sibling, shattering the family story she had lived inside and forcing confrontations with secrecy and silence. That rupture reshaped her understanding of truth and now informs her work with writers navigating buried histories. She teaches expressive writing for emotional healing to individuals, communities, and in university and workplace settings, and is at work on a memoir of sisterhood lost and found. She is the author of Politics, Partnerships, & Power. www.christinewolf.com