• Alice Stephens,  Interview

    Famous Adopted People: a Novel – by Alice Stephens

    I saw Famous Adopted People at my local library and picked it up for a friend who has an adopted child.  I was in a hurry so I didn’t see the words ‘a novel’  and thought it was a non-fiction book about famous adopted people.  It is not. The book is best described as a rollicking read that explores a range of salient issues around transnational adoption and one that exemplifies how some truths are best told through fiction. At the start of the novel, we meet two young women who are negotiating the complexities of their transnational and racialized identities.  At the center of the story is Lisa Pearl, a Korean-America adoptee who isn’t…

  • Catherine Robertson,  Profile

    Catherine Robertson – Writing a Bestseller

    I met Catherine Robertson at a short-fiction workshop at the International Institute of Modern Letters when I was on a working holiday in the Land of the Long White Cloud.   I don’t know how the others in the workshop felt about their time there,  but I remember thinking,  “This is it. This is why I took such a meandering path and made seemingly senseless choices…I’m meant to be alive at this moment, sitting in a circle with 12 intelligent and creative people who value creative expression as much as I do, and damn  this view over Wellington Harbour is amazing.”  The 13 of us in the room, 12 Wellington-based emerging writers and…