An Adoptee’s Search For Her Roots: An Interview with Memoir Author Gloria Oren
Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler with Gloria Oren/@gloriaoren
I am pleased to participate in the Bonded at Birth blog tour during November 2016 to coincide with National Adoption Month.
My guest interviewee today is Gloria Oren whose memoir, Bonded at Birth: An Adoptee’s Search For Her Roots is about loss, survival, determination, and persistence.
Welcome, Gloria!
Memoir Author Gloria Oren
An Adoptee’s Search For Her Roots: An Interview with Gloria Oren
KP: Tell us about your adoption story and the main message you want to convey.
GO: Bonded at Birth: An Adoptee’s Search for Her Roots is a story of loss, survival, determination, and persistence. It covers one state, three countries, and two continents. It covers sixteen years of searching and a little over four decades since my first adoption. It wasn’t until seven years post-reunion that my second adoption occurred.
I want other adoptees and those involved with adoption to be inspired. To feel that if I could be successful anyone can. I want them to see it as the go to book for adoptees who are hesitant to search.
I also want my message, that there is n place for secrecy in families, especially in the adoptive family, to go to all my readers.
KP: What made you decide to write a memoir about your adoption experience?
GO: I wrote my memoir about my adoption experience because I felt it was a story that had to be shared. I heard from many adoptees that they can’t search because they have no or little information to go on. When I turned eighteen, it became more and more realistic that we, as adoptees, have the right to know our own information regarding our origins and medical histories. This inspired me to share my story, as I too had no more than the fact that my birth mother was a teen from Nova Scotia. Yet things have a way of happening, and because of them and the help of others, I was found. Yes, I searched. And yes, I was found.
KP: How did your adoptive parents respond to your need to search for your birth parents?
GO: My adoptive father died on my eleventh birthday and my adoptive mother died when I was 23. I actually started searching in earnest about two years after my adoptive mother died. They likely would not have liked the idea and possibly would have tried to stop me. After all my adoption was kept a secret.
KP: That must have been very difficult. What gave you the strength to persist in your quest to find your birth parents?
GO: I had to know. I experienced various medical issues and later had some show up in my children. I didn’t want it to be a secret any more. All my medical records had misleading information based on my adoptive family’s history. This can be dangerous. I wanted it changed but didn’t know what to change it to. I needed to discover this for my sake and the sake of my children.
And I always had a feeling that one day it would come to be. It’s hard to explain this; I just knew it would be. And it was, eight days short of my forty-first birthday.
KP: What advice would you give others wishing to find their birth parents or adoptive parents whose children wish to search?
GO: I would advise adoptees wishing to find their birth parents to first read through the vast amount of literature on adoption, on adoption searching, and reunion. They must be ready for whatever outcome there may be. I was lucky to not only have been reunited with my birth mother and maternal grandmother; I wasn’t as lucky on my paternal side as my birth father died eight years before my reunion with my birth mother. But having his surname I was able to locate and connect with half-siblings. Go for it when you are ready. But do it so you don’t regret not having made the attempt until it’s too late.
My advice to adoptive parents whose children wish to search is this: let them. It is their right to know and it isn’t right for the adoptive parent to prevent this. The adoptive parents don’t always know the information an adoptee might uncover, and which may be important for him or her to know. They will not love the adoptive parent any less, even when succeeding to find their birth families. There is place in the heart to love everyone. Support them, give them the space they need, help if they ask for it, and most important please don’t substitute your medical history for the adoptee’s records just because you don’t know anything else. Just say you don’t know. This is from someone who has had to go through the tedious process of getting all of the information changed. It’s not an easy task, so make it easy for your adoptee.
KP: What were the biggest surprises you’ve encountered in writing your memoir?
GO: The biggest surprises I’ve encountered were how much revisions and edits need to be done and how it feels like it will never end. The truth is no one is one hundred percent perfect and neither is a book. You do the best of your ability to catch all the typos etc., and if something slips through, so be it.
The other thing was the fact that I sent out well over a hundred queries to agents, and most responded with personal notes that they liked the story but felt they wouldn’t be the right person to promote the book. Then when I decided to check out the self-publishing option, the quotes I got from self-publishers were way beyond my budget and I didn’t see why I had to spend so much if I would be doing most of the work on promoting anyway. I went the other route. I hired someone to do my cover and the interior layout as well as upload it and I am doing all the promotion and marketing myself. It cost me much less and so far, it has worked for me.
KP: How much do you know about a book when you begin writing it?
GO: I knew where I wanted to start and where it would end. I made an outline, it changed a lot for the middle part but the start, and end points stayed the same. Most important is to know the end, then build up your story to that end. Knowing your conflicts, what is the character facing and how will they be resolved, helps, too.
KP: What business challenges have you faced as a writer?
GO: Lots. I knew I had to market my book and promote it. I’m not a marketer. I’m still learning. I have to figure out how to do lots of things, but I am lucky to have lots of contacts from before that I can turn to if I need help with a challenge. I’m not very versed in tech issues so I turn to my son for help with that. Other than that it is a lot of reading books, blogs, etc. as well as listening to webinars and so on to learn how to do things. All the information is out there, it just requires time to gather it and apply it as needed.
KP: How would you describe your style of writing?
GO: I would describe it as conversational. I’m relating a story to the reader. I want the reader to feel like he or she is there beside me. I try to use as simple language as possible.
KP: Do you have any memoir writing tips to share?
GO: Write your memoir as if you were writing a novel. Make it flow easily so it keeps your reader’s attention from start to end. Don’t try to put everything in, stick to what is pertinent to your topic and story. There was a lot I had put in the first draft that I felt was important, but it was dry, history related, so I pulled it out, rewrote it, and formed it into an article. Not everything has to be in the book.
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Thank you, Gloria for sharing your adoption story and your memoir writing tips. Your successful search for your roots will give many adoptees hope for their own search.
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Book Synopsis:
After growing up under the umbrella of secrecy, Gloria sets out to find her birth mother with all she knew about her: she was a Jewish teenager. Despite being told by anyone and everyone that it would be an impossible feat, her determination and motivation increased. Learning her birth father’s name upon reunion with her birth mother and a short time later that he passed away eight years before led to her getting involved in genealogy and through thisresearch medium she discovered that her first cousin seven times removed was Col. William Prescott of the Battle of Bunker Hill fame and more. Seven years later her story is brought full circle.
Author Bio and Contact Information:
Gloria Oren is an Author and Award winning Editor.
She has a powerful perspective of finding positivity in experiences on life’s roller coaster lurches that leave many in panic.
She is an editor for Muse It Up Publishing and also does freelance editing. When editing Gloria helps authors create the best book they can.
Founder of the Facebook group Women Writers Editors Agents and Publishers which has over 6,000 members (all women) and which continues growing day by day.
She is a member of the Redmond Association of Spokenword (RASP) and Society of Good Grammar (SPOGG).You can connect with Gloria:
http://gloriaoren.com
http://gloriascorner.com
http://familylinksmatter.blogspot.com/ She is also on Facebook and Twitter (@gloriaoren).
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How about you? Do you have an adoption story to share?
We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
Next Week:
Monday, 11/14/16:
“Freedom in Forgiveness by Laurie Buchanan, PhD”
Laurie is the author of Note to Self: A Seven-Step Pathway To Growth and Gratitude. She will give away an autographed copy of her book to a commenter whose name will be selected in a random drawing.
