Adopted Feels

You may know Eli Harwood from her popular Instagram account Attachment Nerd, but what you may not know is that Eli is also a brilliant adoption-competent therapist who spent two years living in Seoul working with Korean adoptees at the beginning of her career. (And you can trust us, adoption-competent therapists are our jam!) We talk about how Eli ended up working with the internat

It’s been a minute but we’re back! And we’ve missed you! Catch up with us from Hana’s car as we reflect on the past year, and have an (awkward but very real) convo about career changes, perceived failure, and navigating big life transitions.

Friendship might seem like a random topic for an adoptee podcast, and this series - of which the current episode is the first - is an experiment, tbh, like a lot of things we do here. But lately we’ve been thinking about it a lot. Maybe it’s because of the pandemic and the isolation that many of us felt, maybe it’s because Hana moved to Korea and had to make new friends - mul

What are you afraid to feel? Fear? Sadness? Anger? Whatever it is, adoptee coach Susan Stam (강선영) wants you to stay with it. And then stay with it a little longer. Adopted from Korea at the age of 4 years and 7 months to the Netherlands, Susan works as a coach specialising in relinquishment and adoption-related issues with AFC (Adoptee and Foster Care) Netherlands, founded by

We had SO MUCH FUN with this guest and we think you will too. Korean-Australian adoptee Ra Chapman is a writer, actor and dramaturg. She has strong ties with the adoption community and works closely with Asian-Australian and diverse artists. Ra is one of those people who has been on our list of guests to invite for a long time, but we were just waiting for the right moment—and he

Today we're in for a treat! An outcome of some gentle encouragement from me (Ryan), in this episode Hana shares a beautifully written account of her Korean language learning journey thus far. In the loose form of a listicle - because we can't resist a good list on this podcast - here's 10 'lessons' Hana has learned about, well, learning one's original language as an adoptee, how it

In this episode we have the pleasure of speaking to Korean adoptee and award-winning writer James Han Mattson. We start with James' path to becoming a writer and the moment when his Iowa acceptance letter arrived in the mail. He treats us to two readings of his work: an extended excerpt from his recent novel Reprieve, and his essay “Letter to a Stranger” published in the litera

In this episode we talk to the inimitable Jenny Heijun Wills and touch on some of the themes that - we feel - go to the very core of our stories and our storytellings as adoptees. Consent and access. Fact and fantasy. The challenges of charting our way through the stories people expect - often even demand of us since we were children - to aim for something that serves us: the nuanc

Born in Daejeon, Korea, and adopted to the United States at the age of ten months, Lee Herrick is the author of three books of poems: Scar and Flower, a finalist for the 2020 Northern California Book Award, Gardening Secrets of the Dead and This Many Miles from Desire. He is also the co-editor of the anthology The World I Leave You: Asian American Poets on Faith and Spirit. As well

This is a special compilation episode featuring six powerful short pieces about first encounters with food from our birth cultures, read by their transracial adoptee authors, from our recent autobiographical writing workshop led by Korean adoptee Mee Joo Kim. Hana also has a little chat with Mee Joo about the value of adoptee-only spaces. We hope you love the short pieces as much a