61. Michele Kriegman, an adoptee, published author and in reunion

Michele Kriegman born Suzanne Gilbert is a storyteller by nature but she was missing her own backstory well into adulthood. Finding her birth-father helped complete it. She worked for many years in U.S. and Japanese journalism, including ABC News, iVillage.com, Lilith, Maine Public Radio, NYT Nippon TV's morning show, . More recent journalism has been for cybersecurity publications such as Info Security Professional.  Michele is an adoptee who searched successfully for her birth-father in New York before the state opened its records. She reclaimed her birth-name, Suzanne Gilbert, to write the novel, Tapioca Fire, that is the prequel to The Birth-Fathers’ Club. She teaches writing workshops for adoptees and donor-conceived people finding their #ownvoices. She speaks on panels for social workers, adoptive families, and intentional parents about birthright issues. Her approach, though well-researched, isn’t academic or clinical; she’s been an in-the-trenches adoptive stepmom too. Most recently, a DNA test kit that came as a Chrismukkah present, revealed a sister! Their shared birth-father, and his complex effort at redemption later in life, inspired the story in one of the novellas. Music by Corey Quinn