Two teens take the stage and find their voice. . . A girl learns about her heritage and begins to find her community. . . A sister is haunted by the ghosts of loved ones lost. . . There is no universal adoption experience, and no two adoptees have the same story. This anthology for teens edited by Shannon Gibney and Nicole Chung contains a wide range of powerful, poignant, and evocative stories in a variety of genres. These tales from fifteen bestselling, acclaimed, and emerging adoptee authors genuinely and authentically reflect the complexity, breadth, and depth of adoptee experiences. This groundbreaking collection centers what it’s like growing up as an adoptee. These are stories by adoptees, for adoptees, reclaiming their own narratives.  With stories by: Kelley Baker Nicole Chung Shannon Gibney Mark Oshiro MeMe Collier Susan Harness       Meredith Ireland Mariama J. Lockington Lisa Nopachai Stefany Valentine Matthew Salesses Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom Eric Smith Jenny Heijun Wills Sun Yung Shin Foreword by Rebecca Carroll Afterword by JaeRan Kim, MSW, PhD

This book presents the authors' attempts to interrogate the ways that white institutional, pedagogical, and curricular heteronormativity affects equity in writing instruction at Two Year Colleges. Written from a wide range of subject and identity positions, this volume explores issues that arise among students inside historically white-dominant classrooms, among faculty as curriculum and hiring decisions are made, and among colleagues when they attempt to engage the wider institution in equity work. Aiming to significantly change how urban Community College writing instruction is delivered in this country, the book operates on the principle that equity is essential to successful writing pedagogy, curricular development, and student success.

Part memoir, part speculative fiction, this novel explores the often surreal experience of growing up as a mixed-Black transracial adoptee. Dream Country author Shannon Gibney returns with a new book woven from her true story of growing up as the adopted Black daughter of white parents and the fictional story of Erin Powers, the name Shannon was given at birth by the white woman who gave her up for adoption.  At its core, the novel is a tale of two girls on two different timelines occasionally bridged by a mysterious portal and their shared search for a complete picture of their origins. Gibney surrounds that story with reproductions of her own adoption documents, letters, family photographs, interviews, medical records, and brief essays on the surreal absurdities of the adoptee experience. The end result is a remarkable portrait of an American experience rarely depicted in any form.

This book presents the authors' attempts to interrogate the ways that white institutional, pedagogical, and curricular heteronormativity affects equity in writing instruction at Two Year Colleges. Written from a wide range of subject and identity positions, this volume explores issues that arise among students inside historically white-dominant classrooms, among faculty as curriculum and hiring decisions are made, and among colleagues when they attempt to engage the wider institution in equity work. Aiming to significantly change how urban Community College writing instruction is delivered in this country, the book operates on the principle that equity is essential to successful writing pedagogy, curricular development, and student success.

Dream Country author Shannon Gibney returns with The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be, a book woven from her true story of growing up as a mixed-Black transracial adoptee and fictional story of Erin Powers, the name Shannon was given at birth, a child raised by a white, closeted lesbian. At its core, the novel is a tale of two girls on two different timelines occasionally bridged by a mysterious portal and their shared search for a complete picture of their origins. Gibney surrounds that story with reproductions of her own adoption documents, letters, family photographs, interviews, medical records, and brief essays on the surreal absurdities of the adoptee experience. The end result is a remarkable portrait of an American experience rarely depicted in any form. A genre-bending exploration of race and the search for personal identity. Gibney embraces the unknowable gaps in her own life story and uses her skill as a novelist to fill the holes.

Six-year-old Sam, with his Liberian dad and African American mom, finds a way to bring everyone in his cross-cultural family together at the dinner table Rice and okra soup: Sam's auntie from Liberia made it, and it's Dad's favorite. Mom, homegrown in Minnesota, made spaghetti and meatballs. And Sam? He's just hungry, but no matter what he chooses to eat, someone will be disappointed. Caught in the middle of his family's African and American food fight, Sam gets a little help from his grumbling stomach-and readers of this seriously funny book by Shannon Gibney get a peek at cultures colliding in a family kitchen that work out in a very delicious way. Charly Palmer's vibrant and captivating illustrations make this gentle lesson in getting along a bright and colorful visual feast as well. Cassava leaf torbogee or homemade sausage pizza? Sam's family recipes bring Sam and the Incredible African and American Food Fight to an apt and happy ending-and readers can decide which dinner is best. But, really, why not both?

Native women and women of color poignantly share their pain, revelations, and hope after experiencing the traumas of miscarriage and infant loss What God Is Honored Here? is the first book of its kind-and urgently necessary. This is a literary collection of voices of Indigenous women and women of color who have undergone miscarriage and infant loss, experiences that disproportionately affect women who have often been cast toward the margins in the United States of America. From the story of dashed cultural expectations in an interracial marriage to poems that speak of loss across generations, from harrowing accounts of misdiagnoses, ectopic pregnancies, and late-term stillbirths to the poignant chronicles of miscarriages and mysterious infant deaths, What God Is Honored Here? brings women together to speak to one another about the traumas and tragedies of womanhood. In its heartbreaking beauty, this book offers an integral perspective on how culture and religion, spirit and body, unite in the reproductive lives of women of color and Indigenous women as they bear witness to loss, search for what is not there, and claim for themselves and others their fundamental humanity. Powerfully and with brutal honesty, they write about what it means to reclaim life in the face of death. Editors Shannon Gibney and Kao Kalia Yang acknowledge "who we had been could not have prepared us for who we would become in the wake of these words," yet the writings collected here offer insight, comfort, and, finally, hope for all those who, like the women gathered here, have found grief a lonely place. Contributors: Jennifer Baker, Michelle Borok, Lucille Clifton, Sidney Clifton, Taiyon J. Coleman, Arfah Daud, Rona Fernandez, Sarah Agaton Howes, Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, Soniah Kamal, Diana Le-Cabrera, Janet Lee-Ortiz, Maria Elena Mahler, Chue Moua, Jami Nakamura Lin, Jen Palmares Meadows, Dania Rajendra, Marcie Rendon, Seema Reza, Sun Yung Shin, Kari Smalkoski, Catherine R. Squires, Elsa Valmidiano.