When We Become Ours: A YA Adoptee Anthology

Stefany Valentine first fell in love with writing when her elementary school teacher gave her an assignment to create a picture book and she ended up writing a twenty-page manuscript laced with misspelled words. Since then, she's proudly graduated from writing stories about befriending orca whales to tales about the Taiwanese diaspora and existential sci-fi. Her debut novel, First Love Language, in which a Taiwanese adoptee reconnects with her heritage by learning Mandarin, will release in 2025. When not reading or writing, she can be found practicing Mandarin, stuffing her face with street tacos, and trying not to kill her plants. Again.

Susan Harness, author of Mixing Cultural Identities Through Transracial Adoption and the award-winning Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption, is a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes as well as an American Indian transracial adoptee. She holds MAs in both cultural anthropology and creative nonfiction from Colorado State University.

Nicole Chung is the author of the national bestseller All You Can Ever Know. Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, the Washington Post, Time, and many other outlets, All You Can Ever Know was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, a semifinalist for the PEN Open Book Award, an Indies Choice Honor Book, and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. Chung's writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Time, GQ, Slate, and the Guardian. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, she now lives in the Washington, DC, area.

Meredith Ireland is a transracial adoptee attorney and writer born in Seoul. She is a Rollins College and University of Miami School of Law alumna. She writes young adult and children's books. Her debut novel, The Jasmine Project, was a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection and a Best Book of 2021 according to Boston Public Library and received a starred review from ALA Booklist. Her follow-up, Everyone Hates Kelsie Miller, was named a best book of 2022 by both Forbes and Seventeen magazine. Her short story is featured in You Are Here, a middle grade anthology and the inaugural title of Allida/Clarion. Emma and the Love Spell, her debut middle grade fantasy, will be out in winter 2024. Meredith resides in New York with her two children and a county fair goldfish that will probably outlive them all.

Kelley Baker is a transracial adoptee born in Colorado and raised in Northern California. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. You can find her on Instagram @kelleydbaker.

MeMe Collier is a creative writing major turned resident physician who dabbles in various other arts as well, from sketching and painting to singing and writing music. She was raised by her incredible adoptive single mother and grandparents, and the passing of her mother after battling a brain tumor for ten years is a major influence on her desire to pursue medicine and the themes of loss and life afterward that she often explores in her writing. She tries to stay active in the adoptee community, having contributed to the ABC Adoptees Born in China podcast, research studies on how international adoptees form their identity, and a discussion panel with the 1882 Foundation. She has never been much for social media, but she has attempted to start a creativity-focused Instagram account and would be happy to chat. You can find her online by following word.doc96.

Lisa Nopachai is a Mexican American transracial adoptee, born in Texas and raised in an Italian American family in New Jersey, where she fell in love with homemade ravioli and loud music. With a BA in psychology from Amherst College and an MA in intercultural studies from Fuller Theological Seminary, Lisa has worked in the fields of child advocacy, interdisciplinary research, and health-care chaplaincy. Lisa is passionate about creating spaces for people to engage their full range of emotions and process experiences of grief, beauty, pain, and joy. Lisa and her husband live in the Los Angeles area with their two lovely, imaginative kids.

Matthew Salesses was adopted from Korea when he was two. He has written about adoption, race, and grief for NPR, the New York Times, the Guardian, VICE, and other publications. He is the author of seven books of fiction and nonfiction, including the writing guide Craft in the Real World and the PEN/Faulkner shortlisted novel Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear. He lives in New York with his two kids and is an assistant professor of writing at Columbia University.

Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom was born in Busan, South Korea, and adopted to Sweden at age two. She is a comic book artist and illustrator and has published two graphic novels: Palimpsest (2016), an autobiographical account of the search for her Korean family, and The Excavated Earth (2022), which follows Chilean adoptees who were stolen and sold for adoption to Sweden. She is a vocal adoptee rights activist and a Swedish Korean Adoptees' Network member, fighting for truth and justice for adoptees and first parents. Lisa lives in Aotearoa, New Zealand, with her partner, two children, and a cat. Follow her on Instagram at @chung.woolrim.

Jenny Heijun Wills is the author of the multiaward-winning memoir Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related (2019). She was born in Seoul and raised in a white family and community in Southern Ontario, Canada. She is currently professor of English and Chancellor's Research Chair at the University of Winnipeg. She is the author of the forthcoming collection of personal essays Asian Adopted Queer Hungry (2024) as well as coeditor of two academic books.