Susan Devan Harness with Sara Easterly Live at Tattered Cover Aspen Grove
About this Event
We are excited to have one of the contributors -- Susan Devan Harness-- of the provocative anthology Relative Strangers: Inheritance, Identity, and the Meaning of Kinship, on Friday, September 25th at 6:00 PM at our Aspen Grove location in conversation with award-winning author, Sara Easterly!
Registration includes the following options:
- A signed Paperback copy of the book … OR
- A $5 Gift Card to Tattered Cover Book Store
We will have a limited supply of additional books for guests to purchase in store. Only a book ticket guarantees you a copy of the book.
This event includes an opportunity to meet the author, participate in an audience Q&A after the book talk, and get your book(s) signed and personalized. Photos with the author are welcome!
If you are unable to attend the event after purchasing a ticket, you are required to pick up your copy of the book (with proof of purchase from your event registration) within 7 days after the event date. If the book is not picked up by that date, you relinquish your copy to Tattered Cover Book Store.
ABOUT THE BOOK
What happens when you find out the family you were raised in is not entirely—or not at all—your biological family? It’s a question millions face because—although these family secrets are revealed in many ways—as DNA testing soars in popularity, approximately one in four individuals who take a DNA test will discover an unknown close relative. Relative Strangers: Inheritance, Identity, and the Meaning of Kinship, publishing on June 23 from ELJ Editions, shines a light on the experience of those who live in the aftermath of encountering unknown parents and siblings and cope with the fallout: identity disruption, family dysfunction, the longing for biological kin, the messy complexities of reunion, the sting of rejection, and the joy of connection.
These are intimate essays by adoptees and those with misattributed parentage, including donor conceived people, whose discoveries of previously unknown biological family have required them to reimagine who they are and reconsider their notions of what it means to be family.
With a foreword by Libby Copeland, author of the acclaimed book The Lost Family: How DNA Testing is Upending Who We Are, and advance praise from Dani Shapiro—whose bestselling memoir, Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love, brought the not-parent-expected (NPE) experience to a broad and eager readership—the anthology arrives during a seismic cultural shift in which our understanding of family is in flux.
According to Jackson, “Even in a time and place where genealogy is a national pastime, family is revered, and lineage is a source of pride, the desire to know one’s genetic identity and the challenges of not knowing are widely misunderstood by those who’ve never had to question where they come from.”
“If you’ve been affected by a DNA discovery that has brought you to your knees, run, don’t walk,” Shapiro says. “Press this book into the hands of anyone who asks: ‘What difference does it make?’ The answer to that question is in these pages.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Susan Devan Harness (Confederated Salish Kootenai Tribes) is a writer, lecturer, and oral historian and has been a research associate for the Tri-Ethnic Center for Prevention Research at Colorado State University.
She is the author of Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption and High Plains Book Award winner in the categories of Indigenous Writer and Creative Nonfiction, and Mixing Cultural Identities Through Transracial Adoption: Outcomes of the Indian Adoption Project (1958–1967).
ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER
Sara Easterly is an adoptee and the author of books that include (Bloomsbury), co-authored with birth parent Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard and adoptive parent Lori Holden, as well as the award-winning spiritual memoir, (Heart Voices). Sara’s essays, articles, and book reviews have been widely published.
Sara has long been supporting other writers and adoptees. She is the founder of and previously led one of the largest chapters of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI), where she was recognized as SCBWI Member of the Year.
She is also a trained course facilitator and Professional Associate with the , providing a lens that informs Sara’s insights on the intersection of attachment, child development, brain science, and adoption. There, she spearheads the Kid-Lit Book Club and oversees the Neufeld Institute Children’s Book List.
Additionally, Sara has 20+ years of experience as a publicist and event planner orchestrating book tours, launch campaigns, and large-scale events, and is co-host of the .
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
USD 7.25 to USD 24.83
