Listen live on the airwaves @ 1240 AM WOON As an adoptive child in Britain, playwright Nicole J. Burton always wanted to find her birth parents. After immigrating with her family to the United States, she sought the elusive characters haunting her imagination. With an appointment with one of Her Majesty's social workers and her birth mother's name in hand, she returned home.There she began a search that led to more drama than any play she could possibly conceive. Apippa Publishing Company, $14.95 ISBN: 978-0-9798992-0-1
live or archived at www.onworldwide.com
Adoption Books You MUST Read!
At age 22, the author set out to find her English birth parents, a Jewish father and a mother believed to be an artist. The adventure led to parents, grandparents, and siblings, a kaleidoscope of relationships with one dark secret at its center.
Fred and Frieda; Last Call at the Marble Bar; and Starman, Wish Me Luck. Her award-winning dramas and comedies have been produced in theatres and venues as diverse as federal prisons, homeless shelters, and the U.S. Capitol. Her screen treatment for Southwest Remembered,
a film about urban renewal in Washington, DC
won the CINE Golden Eagle Award for Best Documentary.
A reunited adoptee, Nicole's memoir, Swimming Up the Sun, was published by Apippa Publishing in December 2007.
Swimming Up the Sun is available at amazon.com and also via the author's website: nicolejburton.com where you can read excerpts from the book, and hear selected readings by the author herself.
Reading Adoption Family and Difference in Fiction and Drama Marianne Novy is Professor of English and Women’s Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. Reading Adoption is a uniquely personal exploration of adoption in literature, probing how these literary representations shape cultural expectations of adoption and reunion
by Marianne Novy
"Weaving together perceptive literary analyses, skillful expositions of cultural history, and thoughtful discussions of her own experiences as an adoptee, Marianne Novy illuminates texts ranging from Shakespeare’s plays to the novels of Barbara Kingsolver. This book will interest not only students of literature but the many people involved with the process of adoption."—Heather Dubrow, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"In Reading Adoption Marianne Novy takes us back to Oedipus, that quintessential adoptee, and to Shakespeare’s romance with parent-child reunions, as well as to orphans lost and found in modern English and American literature. And all the while she gives us insights into living adoption as she weaves her own story of reuniting with her birth mother, which is as absorbing as any of the fictional narratives she has guided us through."—Betty Jean Lifton, author of Journey of the Adopted Self: A Quest for Wholeness
NOW—30% discount
Order from University of Michigan Press:
by phone 800.343.4499
web www.press.umich.edu
Reading Adoption explores the ways in which novels and plays portray adoption, and suggests how these representations have contributed to general perceptions of adoptive parents, adoptees, and birth parents. Marianne Novy reads a range of authors, including Sophocles,Shakespeare, George Eliot, Dickens, Barbara Kingsolver, Edward Albee and others, to observe how these works address the question of what makes a parent. She identifies repeated themes such as differences between adoptive parents and children, fantasies of mirroring between adoptees and their birth parents, and the relationship between nature and nurture. She meditates on how her relationships with her adoptive parents, her birth mother, and her own daughter affect her reading, and ultimately finds issues in much adoption literature relevant to parenting in any kind of family. Engagingly written from Novy’s dual perspectives as critic and adult adoptee, the book combines the techniques of literary and feminist scholarship with memoir, shedding new light on familiar texts.
Also by Marianne Novy:
Imagining Adoption...Essays on Literature and Culture
Engaging essays on the theme of adoption as seen in literary works and in writings by adoptees, adoptive parents, and adoption activists
Adoption has long been a pervasive theme in literature, from folk legends to the novels of Barbara Kingsolver. Many nonliterary writers have been increasingly drawn to the subject. Imagining Adoption brings together for the first time analyses of literary portrayals of adoption and other examples of adoption discourse.
The essays analyze adoption in a range of works, including the novels of George Eliot and Anthony Trollope; children's literature (Anne of Green Gables, Charlotte's Web); contemporary fiction (Louise Erdrich, Jeanette Winterson, Barbara Kingsolver, Margaret Laurence); and poetry (Sandra McPherson, Jackie Kay) and film (Secrets and Lies, Losing Isaiah). ...most importantly this anthology shows how complex and varied are the ways in which people have written about adoption itself.
Order from Univ. of Michigan Press:
by phone 800.343.4499
web www.press.umich.edu
Micky Duxbury is an adoptive parent and a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who specializes in pre and post-adoption education and counseling, and works with all members of the adoption triad. She facilitates pre-adoption support groups, and is a workshop presenter at the annual Adoption Symposium of Northern California Resolve. Micky developed a course on the Psychology of Adoption and offers Raising Adopted Children workshops and consultations. Whether you are an adoptive parent, an expectant parent with an unplanned pregnancy, a birth or adoptive family already in a relationship or wanting to open a closed adoption, the families in this book want to speak with you... "Open adoption is not a trend - it is the wave of the future. Making Room In Our Hearts helps us prepare for that future by providing an ethical and child-centered perspective as it puts a human face on open adoption. You will meet real people revealing, as well as struggling, with the ups and downs of these complex relationships. This book fills an important need by providing adoption professionals, birth and adoptive families and their extended familial networks with a wealth of practical and personal information." Brenda Romanchik, MSW. Open Adoption educator, Birth Parent advocate, and Director of Insight: Open Adoption Resources and Support. Micky Duxbury has written an interesting, up to date book on the beauty and the complexity of families built through open adoption. This is a book well worth reading and owning; I highly recommend it. Sharon Roszia, author of Open Adoption Experience "I have been anxiously awaiting the release of Making Room in our Hearts, by Micky Duxbury so that I could recommend it to every adopting family ...Never has there been a volume so compassionate, inspiring and informative about why child-centered, open adoption is the correct paradigm for today's adoptions. Ms. Duxbury understands that openness in adoption is not a quantifiable obligation, but a quality that can be cultivated and resides in the heart of family members touched by adoption." Making Room In Our Hearts is an authentic, inside account of the open adoption experience. It offers an opportunity to listen in as the participants of adoption describe the delights and challenges of their journeys. Openness never shines brighter than when it is expressed in the actual words of those who live it day in and day out. Adoptive parent and therapist Micky Duxbury has produced a "must-read" for anyone considering open adoption. Over 150 adoptees, birth and adoptive parents, as well as grandparents who are participants in open adoption - offer their personal stories, along with family photographs, in this readable and well-researched book. 
Making Room in Our Hearts:
Keeping Family Ties through Open Adoption
by Micky Duxbury
to buy this book or for more information: go to www.mickyduxbury.com
openadoption@earthlink.net
when ordering mention your 20% speakingofadoptionradio.com rate
also: bulk discounts for adoption agencies:
800-272-7737
www.routledgementalhealth.com/duxbury/
Reviews
"Every once in a while, a book comes along that can make an honest difference in the understanding of an important subject -- and, therefore, in people's lives. I'm delighted to say that `Making Room in Our Hearts' is one of those books. It takes on open adoption, which remains too poorly understood despite its growing prevalence, and explains it in the best possible way: through the stories of those who live it. The result is simultaneously touching and enlightening; it's a wonderful combination that I hope and believe will make an honest difference in the continued evolution of adoption..."Adam Pertman, Executive Director Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute; Author of "Adoption Nation"
Leslie Foge, MA, MFT
Adoption Psychotherapist
Co-author of The Third Choice: A Woman's Guide for Placing a Child for Adoption
James Gritter, editor of Adoption Without Fear and author of The Spirit of Open Adoption and Lifegivers: Framing the Birthparent Experience in Adoption.
Review by Judy Norris for PACER, summer 2007
