News and Happenings for Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption

You know how after you write a book you scan the web for reviews, interviews, sales, and anything with your name attached to it?  And it pretty much comes up the same?  Until it doesn’t.  There is a ton of happenings around Bitterroot and its reception over the past few months.  Upcoming events?   September 23-27, 2019 Adoption.com will host the Adoption Summit, an online adoption conference that will showcase 70+ experts about the child adoption experience.  I am honored and excited that my interview of Bitterroot, which discusses issues of race, history and social hierarchy, will be included in the conference. Bitterroot, a finalist in the Colorado Book Awards, is also a finalist in the High Plains Book Awards in three categories – Creative Nonfiction, Indigenous Writer and Woman Writer!  Astounding news that it has been so well received and again, so honored by its reception.  Winners in the High Plains Book Awards will be announced October 12, 2019 at the Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings, Montana.   Read a review of Bitterroot in the Billings Gazette!  When Gina Fimbel contacted me from Be the Bridge to schedule a live FB interview, I was ecstatic.  This Christian group’s focus is on racial unity through understanding, which is a really important conversation to have because so many in the Christian community choose transracial or transnational placements with little true understanding of of the challenges and complexities.  My research and life experience as an American Indian transracial adoptee provides a window that allows other prospective or adoptive parents who are considering, or are in, transracial placements a very real view of those complicates and challenges.  The interview will take place on Facebook on November 11, 2019 at 5:30 – details to follow.  

Interviews are a great vehicle not only to talk about the book, but the ‘whys’–including why should we care?  My latest interview was in the Colorado Sun and the interviewer asks great and thought-provoking questions!

Writing workshops are great ways of introducing students of all levels to different ways of seeing the world and then interpreting that experience for their readers.  I just got done conducting a great workshop in giving your narrative a 3-D finish in Crested Butte for the Gunnison Valley Literary Festival, and will be doing another in Fort Collins, on October 18 for the Fort Collins Book Festival.  Check it out and if it sounds interesting, I’d love to see you there.  

Check back periodically for updates.  Or you can click on the RSS feed to receive updates automatically.  And, as always, your comments and conversation are appreciated.

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