Shannon Gibney, editor, with Nicole Chung, of When We Become Ours: A YA Adoptee Anthology
Anthology Category, sponsored by Minnesota Humanities Center
Each week leading up to the 37th annual Minnesota Book Awards, we are featuring exclusive interviews with our finalists. You can also watch the authors in conversation with their fellow category finalists here.
What inspired you to write this book – or inspired you while writing it?
This was the book I wanted and needed as a teen transracial adoptee. My co-editor Nicole Chung and I wanted to assemble an A-Team of the best writing by adoptees today, and that’s what we were fortunate enough to be able to do. We are immensely proud of the book and the work it is doing in the world, as it is the first anthology of short stories by adoptees about adoptees.
What is one detail you wanted to include in this book, but couldn’t find a place for?
We had to make a decision early on about whether the anthology would be Middle Grade (MG), Young Adult (YA), or some mixture of both. We ultimately went with YA, and I think that was the right choice for this particular project, but I would still love to see what adoptee MG writers would come up with.
Tell us about someone (whose name isn’t on the cover!) who proved instrumental to the creation of this book.
My dear friend and colleague, Dr. Sarah Park Dahlen, asked Nicole and I if we would ever consider collaborating on an anthology like this. She studies diversity and adoptee representation in children’s literature, and saw a dearth of representation. It was an auspicious idea, which ultimately came to fruition in a powerful way.
Please tell us something about yourself that is not widely known. (It doesn’t have to be about the book in question – or even about your writing at all!)
At the end of high school and beginning of college, I thought I wanted to go into medicine and be a doctor. Everything worked out for the best though…
Share your thoughts about the role and value of libraries.
Libraries are the pinnacle of civilizations! They contain volumes of FREE information: history, science, literature, art, mathematics, theory. We have to continue to fund and protect this precious resource, especially in this dark political time.
Shannon Gibney is a writer, educator, activist, and the author of See No Color, Dream Country, and The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be. All three have won Minnesota Book Awards. Gibney is faculty in English at Minneapolis College, where she teaches writing.
Nicole Chung is the author of A Living Remedy and All You Can Ever Know, both Junior Library Guild crossover selections. All You Can Ever Know was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and an Indies Choice Honor Book.