Presenting at KAAN 2025 in Atlanta with Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello on June 21st, 4:15-5:30 and June 22, 9:45-11:00.

Writing can be an important tool to process the impact of adoption. The Adoptee Consciousness model, developed by Susan Branco, JaeRan Kim, Grace Newton, Stephanie Kripa Cooper-Lewter, and Paula O’Loughlin in 2022, gave adoptees a language and framework to understand the five touchstones of adoptee awareness: status quo, rupture, dissonance, expansiveness, and forgiveness and activism. Using those “five touchstones within the spiral” as writing prompts, the workshop facilitators will guide participants to write a memoir in poetry and prose of their own adoptee journey of growth and change.