164 Adoptees Off Script with Carrie Cahill Mulligan
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/164
Haley Radke: [00:00:00] You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm your host, Haley Radke. Before we get started, I want to let you know how much it means to me that you are showing up here to listen to adoptee voices. I remember when I was first in reunion with my dad and we hit the inevitable rocky patch after the honeymoon period faded.
I felt so alone. I believed I was absolutely unlovable because my first mother had ghosted me after a few months into our reunion about a decade prior. And for me, creating this podcast has been a tremendous labor of love so that adoptees like me who were feeling alone or struggling in reunion or coming out of the fog would have a connection so we wouldn't feel like we were crazy.
The wildest part of all of this is that it succeeded. Adoptees On has become our show. [00:01:00] Our show to connect and share what the adoptee experience is really like, and I'm asking you today to support the podcast and make it sustainable for me to continue doing this work.
I'm Haley, the host and creator of this show–our community’s show–and I'm also a wife and mom to two little boys who are sleeping in their bed as I write this. When you sign up for Patreon or donate via PayPal, you are helping me, Haley, contribute to my family's needs. What I didn't expect when I started podcasting was that this would become my full-time job.
I'm showing up for you and saying yes to adoptees, and I would love for you to show up for me and commit to support Adoptees On. For three weeks only, I have a sale on for yearly membership to the Adoptees On Patreon, and you're going to get one month free. After that, it's going to go back to regular price.
I'm honored by the support I've already gotten from the community and, truthfully, pretty scared to make this ask, [00:02:00] but if I am going to continue to make this show, I really need your help to make it sustainable and to have the ability to meaningfully contribute to my little family over here. Click the link in the show notes or go to adopteeson.com/partner to sign up right now.
Okay, let's get to the show.
On today's episode of the podcast, I am giving you a peek behind the scenes to Adoptees Off Script, which is the second weekly podcast I produce for my monthly Patreon supporters. So here it is behind the scenes. You can take a little peek behind the paywall curtain to see if it's something that you want to join for 2021.
And as I mentioned, there's a sale on and the sale is ending on November 30th, so you have a couple more days if you're listening to this when it drops to make sure you join us; adopteeson.com/partner has the details. Okay, let's listen in. [00:03:00]
Welcome back to Adoptees Off Script. I'm Haley Radke, and with me today is Carrie Cahill Mulligan. Hi, Carrie.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Hi, Haley.
Haley Radke: I want to start out with a big thank you, because I have gotten so many new supporters over the last couple weeks. I just want to say thank you so much and welcome here. You guys all get to hear this on Monday. Everyone else is going to join us on Friday for this episode, so it's a big group show for us.
So thank you and welcome, welcome into the Off Script family. Just for one day we're going to give you a taste of what it's like. No pressure. Carrie, no pressure. Do you feel pressure?
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: I do a little. I'm going to do my best.
Haley Radke: Okay. Okay. Yep. Throat clear, stretches, okay.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: That's right.
Haley Radke: Carrie and I have been leading everyone through the Adoptee Reading Challenge over on Off Script all year, and [00:04:00] it's been really fun. How about you, Carrie? How has it been for you doing the Adoptee Reading Challenge?
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: I've loved it. I haven't done so much focused, adoption-related reading and specifically adoptee-written reading ever. And this was challenging to keep up with the pace, honestly, because you and I did extra, I don't know, maybe a third or a half of the months.
Haley Radke: How stupid was that? I mean, sometimes I was like, “Oh, you know what? I found four books that fit the theme.” That was really, really not smart. Anyway–
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Nope. But at the same time, it was exciting. Yes, it's been really wonderful and there's been great feedback in the group. A lot of inspiration and conversation going on there. So I have really loved it and I'm so looking forward to–are you gonna say?
Haley Radke: No! No, they have to hold out a little longer. You're gonna say, we're looking forward to the 2021 plans. That’s the teaser.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Yes.
Haley Radke: [00:05:00] Okay. I want to introduce everybody to you just in case they haven't met you before, which would be a big surprise because Carrie was my very first guest all the way back in Season 1, Episode 1. So if you want to hear some of Carrie's story, you can go back and listen to that.
We have a lot of similar reunion experiences and lots of different reunion experiences. So on the Off Script podcast, we talk all about those things and what's going on for us right now. And Carrie shares lots of wisdom with me, you know, being the older, wiser one.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Oh, we're going this way. I see how we're playing this.
Haley Radke: I do a lot of throwing her under the bus. Vice versa. No, it's probably more me, which is sad.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: No, it's fine.
Haley Radke: Okay. Okay. Anyway–
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: I think what Haley's trying to say is that we have a similar and yet divergent, diverse set of viewpoints between the two of us that we enjoy, I think.
Haley Radke: And friendly banter [00:06:00] with lots of good-hearted teasing.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: I think so.
Haley Radke: Mostly it's fine. I don't know, maybe you might tell me later that I hurt your feelings, but hopefully not.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: No, and I would tell you.
Haley Radke: I know you would. We're the friends that have had those hard conversations. Okay. The next thing I want to introduce people to is our reading styles. Can you give us a picture? I'm curious, I don't know all of the answers to these, but where are your favorite places to read? What are your favorite ways to consume your books? Give us a little picture of how Carrie is a reader.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: I love this. Thank you. This is a great question. I generally am reading through audio books because of my hands being busy making hats and masks and all the different things I do in my fiber business. [00:07:00] But so many of our adoptee-written and related books are more niche and harder to find, and so a lot of those are hardcopy and I have to make sure that I'm reading paper books every day as well. And so that has helped me set up a routine where I have, in the morning while my tea is steeping and, if I'm good, I'll do it before I get into social media or email and just get my 20 to 30 minutes of reading done in the morning.
But I'll usually be on the couch by the south-facing window. And, yeah, usually paper copy for us. But I really do like audio books because then I can be multi-tasking. I am just that type of personality that likes to have a story with me wherever I'm going so it makes mundane tasks a lot more enjoyable.
What about you?
Haley Radke: First of all, that's a very, like, aesthetic situation.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Very cottage corn.
Haley Radke: Setting up with your tea. Yes, it's very cottage corn.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: The wood fire is going, yeah, yeah.
Haley Radke: Well, this may surprise some [00:08:00] of you. Not if you've heard the Off Script podcast. I really don't drive well with audio books. I love podcasts, but audio books have been my stumbling block. So I much prefer reading hard copies. Occasionally. If I maybe was a little slow on the ordering, I might have to resort to getting it on my Kobo or even worse on the Kindle app on my phone. I've had to do that a few times, which is rough, you guys.
It’s rough reading a book on your phone. That's not my style. I love a nice paperback or hardcover, and there's a lot of good places to read in my house. I just love having a blanket and my little Lucy curled up next to me, my dog. That's totally my thing. I don't plan out my reading time. If I am ready to sit down and [00:09:00] read, I will usually read for an hour or two, kids permitting, and if a book is really good, I will do it in a sitting
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Oh wow.
Haley Radke: I'm a binge reader.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Wow, that's so fun. If there’s a series, do you try and read all the books in a series right away, or do you pace yourself on them?
Haley Radke: I know you're asking me this because of Louise Penny, who's not an adoptee, but we've talked to you about her books before, and we love her. Yes. Once I find a series that I really love, I will read all the way till the very last book, and then I'll save the last book because I don't want it to end.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Yeah. Yeah, I totally relate to that.
Haley Radke: So there's a lot of series where I've not even picked up the last book for whatever reason. Just those endings. I don't know. I don't want to deal with the endings.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Yeah, I wonder if there's anything there to dig at.
Haley Radke: Uh, not everything's adoption related. Maybe it is. I don't know. [00:10:00] Oh, that's so funny. Well, just to give you a little background, if you didn't join us for the 2020 Adoptees Off Script Reading Challenge, we read all kinds of different books. We read memoir, fiction, artsy-creative, and nonfiction. And in those categories, we wanted to read books from late discovery adoptees, from foster youth, from transracially adopted people. We forced ourselves, Carrie enjoyed it very much to listen to audiobooks, and we read short stories and poetry. We read middle grade and YA; we did graphic memoirs and then we did anthologies, essays by one author, anthologies by multiple authors. And we also did some nonfiction reading on the history of adoption, which was [00:11:00] a wild ride also. So we had the whole gamut.
Now I'm curious if, after reading all these books–I didn't even count them. I wonder how many books we read?
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Oh, good question.
Haley Radke: We must have read close to 30 books between us.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Yeah, I would think so. Yeah.
Haley Radke: And I'm wondering if you figured out your favorite types of books by adoptees or this was the grand winner of them all? Did you have any thoughts on wrapping up our year’s Reading Challenge, even though we have a month left while we're recording this? We're not quite done.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: I really enjoyed finding particular authors. Like I was really enjoying a couple books by Jeanette Winterson and those couple books by Jackie Kay. And I was surprised to find how deep their catalog was and that I found multiple selections interesting. I think that probably [00:12:00] I could do a Reading Challenge on just memoirs and be happy. Like I just love memoirs. I really do. And particularly if it's a reunion or messy reunion collection of memoirs. I just really love memoirs. I was wishing for more of that, but listening to you talk about all the different types of books we read, I am proud of us for branching out and hitting all those different genres and types of books because I was surprised to see adoptee authors in all of those, which I think reflects my own close-mindedness. But it was really fascinating and it broadened my horizons about what's out there. And now I just want to read. There's so many more books to read. What about you?
Haley Radke: Well, I am going to agree on the memoir front. I thought maybe I was getting sick of them, but it's not true. I love reading people's stories, and it's incredible the diversity of adoptee memoirs available. [00:13:00] It's really quite stunning. And the ones that we read in particular, there were some amazing ones, like My Name is Why by Lemn Sissay. It was recommended to us by a Patreon supporter, which was fantastic. And she sent us a bunch of podcast episodes he had been interviewed on, which was really interesting.
The other one that Carrie and I both read together was From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle. Yes. And it was so good. I have all my tabs still sticking onto that book. Those ones were really powerful and just so well done. And I agree, too, that reading all those different genres really stretched me and surprised me, really surprised me. In my non-work-related reading life, I love psychological thrillers. I love scary books, and those are the ones I most [00:14:00] gravitate towards. But it was pretty amusing to me that I read my most scary book ever in the Adoptee Reading Challenge.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Who knew?
Haley Radke: Who knew? Scary, creepy. And it was an audiobook. It was all the things. So Dan Chaon really just brought it. So if you are into really gross, really scary, ill will, it may be the book for you.
The other thing that kind of surprised me was the poetry and short stories. Sometimes I think I was like, “They're so short and I'll be able to just get through them quickly.” And that's good especially since I committed to reading three or four books in a month. But I really found myself slowing down and enjoying and just being amazed by the skill [00:15:00] and the language. Especially the poets we read really have this immense grasp on – just, see, like words. Words are hard for me, but not for poets. What's the word I'm looking for?
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Uh, sorry, I was counting up how many books we read.
Haley Radke: Thanks. Thanks, co-host. Just leave me out to dry. I'll let Carrie keep counting. I can't even pick a favorite book over the whole year either. There were so many that were wonderful. But what I did figure out is: it's really hard for me to tell you that I didn't like an adoptee book because I feel like I understand the cost it takes to put yourself out there and be really vulnerable. And I've never written a book, but I can imagine the amount of time it would take. [00:16:00] And so sometimes I would read a book and be like, this is not my favorite and that it's probably for someone else, just not for me. I really struggled giving critical reviews.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: But I think that there are so many different kinds of readers and, I don't know, I never felt like you bashed any books, but I always felt like you were honest when a book wasn't for you. And so it's helpful for readers to know, there's a lot of books out there.
Haley Radke: But when I go on Good Reads or Amazon, I still give five stars.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Every adoptee.
Haley Radke: Can you imagine, I don't know how to say this. This is not meant as a humble brag. Can you imagine if you listened to my show and you wrote a book and then you went and saw that I gave your book three stars? Ouch. I wouldn't want to do that.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: No. Do you want to know how many books we read? I'm sorry that I was counting while you were talking.
Haley Radke: Oh my gosh. Okay. I'm going to guess. I'm gonna guess 33. [00:17:00]
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Really? That's right!
Haley Radke: No!
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Yeah, I think so. I got a little distracted when you caught me counting, but I think it's 33. Crazy, I know!
Haley Radke: I'm so proud of myself. I promise I did not do that ahead of time. I cut and pasted my spreadsheet and then I realized, “Oh, I don't even have all the titles on there.” Perfect. 33. Go us. That's awesome. And I know that there were so many of you reading along, some of the same books and some different ones, so that's fantastic.
I'm curious if there was anything that you were like, “Oh, I wish we didn't really read that genre after all,” or “I wish we had leaned more into something like that. After reading all of these books.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: No, I was really happy. Like I said, I think going into it, I was wishing we could do a memoir every other month or just like a memoir companion in each category. [00:18:00] But I was really enjoying being pushed to every different genre. Poetry is hard, but I was just tonight before we were talking, looking up another collection because I remembered, “Oh, looking at the spreadsheet, there was that one that Haley read, Alison Malee. I never did find that. So I'm putting that on my wish list. Christmas is coming.
Haley Radke: Yeah, that's a good idea. Another question I have for you–I'll answer first–is if you found any genres particularly difficult to read? I am going to say the nonfiction history of adoption, which is what we're reading this month for November, was really hard. I focused my reading on the Baby Scoop Era and, wow, it's just so hard to read. It's so depressing. I mean, it's important to know, but it's just so depressing. I don't even know what else to say about it. Especially when I think, “How far have we come?” Like not that far. [00:19:00]
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: I would have to agree even though my book, the Georgia Tan history, was really gripping and super readable. I had in mind that I was going to read two history-of-adoption books this month, and I'm not. I'm just not. We US listeners, we had a lot of other upheaval in November and it's National Adoption Awareness Month, and one history of adoption focusing on a bad mean person is enough for a month. So I can't do it this year.
Haley Radke: That's fair enough. Fair enough. And one thing we did talk a little bit about on Off Script occasionally was that even when these books are really hard to read, it's so important for us to know these things. And so we can't stick our heads in the sand. We cannot do that. It's very important we know it. So even though it's hard, we still have to do it, in my opinion. [00:20:00]
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: And I agree, and I think that's why the challenge was so useful to me because I would've been reading a memoir and never getting around to that book. And it was really good and it's important to know and I'm going to be thinking about it a lot. So thank you for the nudge to read the hard books.
Haley Radke: Awesome. Awesome. Alright. Now you may all be thinking, “Man, where did they even find all these books? I can't believe it. Can I even think of 33 adoptee-written books?” One of my very favorite places to find adoptee-authored books, of course, is our favorite website. We have mentioned it so many times: adopteereading.com. Karen Pickell curates that and it's excellent. She indicates whether a book is merely adoption related or if it's adoptee authored. You can tell right away on each book and you can sort by all the genres we mentioned and more. [00:21:00] And there's even a page where she has a list of every single author that's represented on her site. You can click through and just see all the books that a particular author has either written or contributed to or edited. It's really a tremendous resource, and so I would definitely recommend that.
But I want to know, Carrie, where you find your books, because I know you use Adoptee Reading. I know you use that. But Carrie brought so many books to the show that were–I don't want to sound ageist–that were older.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: They were backlists
Haley Radke: Thank you. She found all these books from years and years ago that I've never heard of and they were just so good. And you described them, and I've read some of them since and I'm like, “How did you dig these up?”
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: I don't know. I think I might have just gone sideways.
[00:22:00] I might have started with books that were recommended on Karen Pickell's site. But then, like I said, I found some favorite authors and just burrowed along their bibliographies and got lucky, found some really good books. And, oh, I just want to say the Jackie Kay book, Trumpet, that I read and reviewed and really loved, that was based on a real person I read today. I was looking up more Jackie Kay stuff.
Haley Radke: Man, when you go down a rabbit hole, you're just like all in.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: I know. So I can't tell you exactly which part of my rabbit warren that I dug up some of these resources, but definitely rabbit hole, yeah.
Haley Radke: I'd love to know because even before we got on the call, you were texting me book after book. I'm like, “Oh my gosh.”
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: You asked if I had any ideas about what I wanted to read next year. I’ve definitely got ideas.
Haley Radke: [00:23:00] She has all the ideas. Actually, maybe this is a new service we can offer. If you need a book recommendation, Carrie is gonna be the one.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Tell me what you've read.
Haley Radke: If you tweet her, she may give you a recommendation. I don't know? Maybe?
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Absolutely. Yes.
Haley Radke: Okay.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Absolutely.
Haley Radke: Oh, that's so good. I am really excited about 2021. We have some really fun things planned. For 2021 we want to be reading the books together. And so what we did in 2020 was sometimes Carrie and I would read the same book, but most often we were reading different books, different multiple books, and we'd come back and we'd give you a book report on our books we read. But my most favorite parts of the Reading Challenge were when we read the same book and we could discuss it, and we had both been on the same page and you would highlight things to me that I missed and vice versa. And so [00:24:00] we would love for you to come and read with us.
And so what we're going to do is we're going to announce our first book for January, 2021. So you have time to get it in your hands and read it before we do a group Book Club. So that'll be really awesome. I'm very excited about that. And then we're going to be asking you a couple months ahead, every single month, what do you want to read? So we will make the decisions as a community. We will do polls on Patreon and in the Secret Facebook Group.
And so we'll include you and we'll also include you on how we're going to be doing the Book Club. So we're going to give you guys a couple of different options. We may do a Zoom call where everybody can chime in if they'd like to for a Q&A period, or we may do the more traditional panel where we may ask a couple of readers to join with Carrie and I, [00:25:00] and you guys can submit questions in the chat. We're going back and forth on that, what it looks like.
But I'm very excited to tell you what our first book is. I feel like we should have a drum roll, but I literally don't have that sound, so can't do it. Just imagine a drum roll in your head. We are going to be reading Alice Stephen’s novel, Famous Adopted People. And Alice is going to be joining us for our very first Book Club and Q&A.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Really?
Haley Radke: Yes. In January. So I'm so stoked. We arranged that just today, and I'm so excited to announce that for everyone. Yeah, what do you think about that?
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: That's amazing because you were just mentioning you were hoping it could happen and that's the last I heard from you today. [00:26:00]
Haley Radke: Carrie loves Twitter. This is why: this happened on Twitter. Alice was very responsive and excited to join us. So we are going to be doing this in the Adoptees Off Script for Patreon supporters. And so it'll be a small group and we'll be able to ask her questions about the book and just chit chat with her, so it's really exciting. All right. What do you think? I think that's a pretty good kickoff to the 2021 Adoptee Reading Challenge.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Yeah, I hope that people are as excited as you and I are.
Haley Radke: It's just going to be us, us and Alice.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Even if it is, I'm still going to be pretty psyched because this has been so fun and I agree with you that it was wonderful to be challenged and we each had piles of books laying around, so we were a little scattered and making up as we went, but like fine-tuning it to make it an actual Book Club where we can look at it from all our different own points of view. [00:27:00] I think this is going to be awesome. And, we're growing and learning. This is the first time we've hosted a Book Club. I guess you did a couple.
Haley Radke: We have done a couple book clubs for the Adoptees On listeners, yes. And they were all really good. We had some amazing authors, and so I'm excited to continue that.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: But yeah, this is the long-term commitment that we haven't made before. So a full year of Book Club is very exciting. Honestly, there's more books than looking at the 33 between the two of us that we read.
Haley Radke: And we only have to read one book a month.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Yes. And it could be some books that people enjoyed hearing us talk about and want to read in community. And that would be fine too.
Haley Radke: Yes.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: We wouldn't mind repeating. Let us know! There are going to be polls, and you'll have plenty of chances to chime in and let us know what you would like to be reading. Otherwise, we'll just fill in with what we want to read and assume and trust that works for you.
Haley Radke: Absolutely. The polls will be up for everyone. [00:28:00] You don't have to be a Patreon to vote in case you're thinking about joining. You can. You can come and have a look at what's going on over there. So if you go to adopteeson.com/partner, you'll find the Adoptees On Patreon page and we are going to have a couple polls up on what genre we're going to read for February, 2021. So we'll have that up for a little bit. Pick the genre and then we'll do a vote on what book we want to read for February. And we'll see, depending on the author. Hopefully I can get a few more authors to join us through the year.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: That's just so cool.
Haley Radke: It just depends on what year the book was written, also. So keep that in mind. And then we'll also have a poll on what style of book club you would like to participate in. If you want to be able to have a chance at sitting on a panel with us for one month, or if you just want to see the author's face and never see me and Carrie and just pepper them with questions, we'll see what we can do. [00:29:00]
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Or if you just want to lurk and you just want to listen to the book conversation without participating, there's no essays required. There's no minimum level of participation required. Lurkers are fully welcome.
Haley Radke: Yes. And people that haven't read the book. You know what, there's always time for conversation and you can always get something out of it. And I also want to say we'll be recording these and releasing them into the Adoptees On Patreon feed. So even if you can't be there with us live, you'll still be able to watch or listen to the recording.
Alright. That is the exciting news. I love learning together in community. That's what's so powerful for me about book clubs. I think I am a really fast reader and so I often miss things, to be totally transparent. So I love needing to slow down to make sure I absorb everything [00:30:00]. I mean, how many times have people come to us after and been like, “Oh, did you notice this or that?” And I'm like, “No, I didn't notice that. Thanks for pointing it out.” So I love that part of reading in community. How about you, Carrie? What are some of your favorite things about book clubs, book discussions, like processing after the fact?
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: I don't know that I read quickly because I'm listening a lot of the time, but readers definitely bring their own experience to books. And so I find it fascinating, and there'll be times when I'm caught up in language but there's a plot thing that I'm missing, or vice versa. So it's just wonderful to have other people, and particularly other adoptees, to read these sorts of books because I value each of you all who are here listening and supporting us and giving us feedback in the Facebook group about books we could read and things to be thinking of. So thank you for being there and reading along with us. I'm excited.
Haley Radke: [00:31:00] Yes, community. It's just one more opportunity and if you're not sure about joining a group, this is one of those safe ways in, I feel, because you're discussing a book. Of course, adoption will likely come up as themes, right? But then you're not necessarily all about your personal story, you're learning as a group about broader topics and that can feel a little bit safer than going to a support group and sharing all your personal stuff right away. Just a thought.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Totally. That's a good point, yes.
Haley Radke: Alright, another thing that we do every single week on Adoptees Off Script is we always wrap up and share something we are loving right now. And I always make sure it's not adoption related. But today I am going to break that rule because I can.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: For sure. [00:32:00]
Haley Radke: Okay. I am so excited because the Adoptees On merch store launched. And so it's been so special for me to see people starting to get their orders. Anne Heffron posted a video of herself in the Adoptees On fall T-shirt. So there's autumn leaves and these beautiful roots. My friend painted it for me. It's gorgeous. And so Anne made a commercial on her Facebook page.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Oh, I'm gonna have to check it out.
Haley Radke: So that is so delightful. And seeing people with their mugs. I don't know what else could make me happier except for, can I tell you? I want you to guess how much merch I have from my own store at this moment.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: What? How much?
Haley Radke: None.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: None?
Haley Radke: None! You guys are getting it first. Thanks for being in Canada, Haley. Yeah, I know, I'm serious.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: [00:33:00] Where do we find the shop?
Haley Radke: If you go to the Adoptees On website, there's a tab for shop or you just go to adopteeson.com/shop. It is a TeePublic store. I researched a lot of different places that you can have drop shipping merch, which is the most helpful for me because I didn't want to have something in Canada that would have to cross the border to all of you; most of my listeners are American. And TeePublic has the most inclusive sizing I could find, ethically sourced products. And so they're very conscious about those things and so I really was hopeful that most of their products were in that direction, so it seemed like the right choice for me.
And they're also very podcaster friendly. There's a lot of other podcasts that have their merch there, so that's fun. And there's a lot of cool stuff in the TeePublic store, including celiac shirts that are very funny. [00:34:00] So, I have celiac disease, that's another thing that people find out more about on Off Script than they ever wanted to know about celiac disease. So that means I can't have wheat and other things that have gluten in them. So there's all these shirts that have like giant no wheat signs or rowdy things about how terrible gluten is. Those kinds of things.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Wow. Just in time for the holidays and for gift giving and Thanksgiving, I mean US Thanksgiving.
Haley Radke: I know. Now this is coming off like I'm making a commercial. I'm really just telling you because I'm so excited. And I'm waiting on my mugs to get here and my shirts and the boys were like, “Where's our shirts?” And I said, “I didn't put kid shirts in the shop because I don't want little adoptees wearing Adoptees On shirts because I don't feel that's appropriate.” [00:35:00]
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: I love you.
Haley Radke: Okay. Tell me what you're loving.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Okay. Besides you, I am loving the other book club that I've been part of, and I have mentioned,
Haley Radke: Are you serious? You're going to promote somebody else's book club when all we talked about was our Book Club?
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: I just want to give a nod to the What Should I Read Next? Modern Mrs. Darcy book club that I have recently become a member of. I've been reaching out to adoptees there, so I'm having a really good time being a little subversive, a little bit proselytizing.
Haley Radke: There's other adoptees in her book club?
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Yes. Super excited. But what I'm specifically loving is this past month the book we read was Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones. And she wrote American Marriage, which I might have mentioned as being a really powerful book that I loved back in the spring. Specifically why I loved Silver Sparrow is the first line of the book is “My father is a bigamist.” That’s not a spoiler, that's the first line of the book. And it's told from two points of view of the two half-sisters and there's the family that was the first family, and then there's the one that comes secondary. [00:36:00] And the author in the author chat, which we had with her just last week, she was very specific not to really believe that out of wedlock means illegitimate. But in the context of the story, the one sister's legitimate and one is illegitimate. And you get to see each sister's point of view, and then their storylines overlap and there's a big dramatic conclusion. And just the issues of family and identity and legitimacy and presence and absence of parents. You could see this could have been an adoption situation given other pressures. A mother who became pregnant with a married man's child in a lot of stories that's somebody else's adoption story, the beginning. [00:37:00] So here's a story where the mom kept that baby in that complicated relationship. And so just a really fascinating book by an author who is talented and lyrical and thoughtful. She does this thing where I don't think anyone's really a bad guy. There's no real black and white. Everyone's got some motivations that you can relate to and understand, and so it's a very human and humanizing look at a complicated family relationship story. So loved it.
Haley Radke: Interesting. That sounds really good. That's one thing from us reading all of these adoptee books this last year, and I don't think we mentioned this, but lots of them are not necessarily about adoption. But then they are below the surface. And so now when I'm reading other books, I'm finding that theme in so many places. And I [00:38:00] don't just mean the adoptee tropes of “Oh, surprise! It's an adopted person at the end who's the murderer.” I just mean there's so many themes of adoption and family separation and trauma, all of those things that we're so familiar with, and I think we learn a lot from books that are like that.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Yes. Like where there's just enough similar but a little bit different so that you can tease out some of the themes that we all have in common: complicated family stories.
Haley Radke: Yes. That's it. That's totally it. And I won't throw Modern Mrs. Darcy under the bus. I have very much enjoyed her podcast, What Should I Read Next? I used to listen all the time. I just could not keep up. There's so many good recommendations and if you want your to-be-read pile to be the size of a skyscraper. I remember for a while I would just put every book that sounded good on [00:39:00] hold till I literally maxed out my wish list on my library app, and that's 40 books, I think, before it maxes out.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Wow.
Haley Radke: Yeah. If you're an avid reader, that's a fantastic podcast. And Carrie is working hard to make sure that they read more adoptee own voices over there.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Yes. Thank you for supporting me in that.
Haley Radke: Now that I say that, will you tell us what “own voices” is?
**Carrie Cahill Mulligan:**Oh, own voices is a hashtag, but it's also a point of view in publishing, of wanting to publish books by minority authors. If you're going to show a minority point of view, then those stories hopefully could be shared by the people whose voices are being depicted. And so many times in adoption or orphan stories, it's just a fascinating setup. Fiction is premised on bad things happening as an inciting incident. And adoptee stories are just like perfectly ripe for fiction. [00:40:00] But it can be really damaging when people are just writing with stereotypes in mind and no real understanding of the adoptee experience. And so in our case, reading own voice books would be reading books about the adoptee experience by adoptees, just so that we are not being drowned out by industry platitudes or feel-good stereotypes or cultural norms. All the rest .
Haley Radke: Are the adoptive moms who email me because they want to come on the show because they wrote a book from the adoptee perspective?
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Oh no.
Haley Radke: Did that happen again this week? I don't know. Well, thank you so much, Carrie. I can't wait for a Book Club with you. Before we go, can you please let everyone know where we can connect with you online and ask you for book recommendations?
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: [00:41:00] Yeah, sure, please. Mostly I'm at my initials and the word hats. So CCM hats except for Twitter, where somebody else had that handle. And so I'm CCM felt hats. But I think all the other places are CCM hats and including my website and I've got all the links there as well. And I'm on Goodreads if you're there. I used to have a library thing that those are both CCM hats. I would love to talk books with you. Please come say hi.
Haley Radke: I will link to all those places for Carrie in the show notes. And, now Carrie mentioned earlier, but I'm going to just highlight this for you, Carrie is this amazing, talented fiber artist. She makes the most gorgeous winter cozy hats with beautiful embroidery on them, and she's been making masks. How many thousands of masks have you made?
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: I think that I've made just over 2,000. I started making hats again, so I slowed down on the masks. But yeah, I'm picking back up on both.
Haley Radke: Oh, she's made these stunning [00:42:00] masks and she sent me a few and they were my favorite to wear and so I will also link to Carrie’s store in the show notes for you if you are in the market for either of those things.
I would welcome you to come and join us on Patreon to make sure you're included in our adoptees Off Script Book Club for 2021. And make sure you go grab a copy of Famous Adopted People so we can read along with Alice Stephens. We will announce dates very soon for the actual live Book Club with Alice. We'll record it so even if you can't be there with us live, you'll still be able to hear it. Thanks so much for chatting.
Carrie Cahill Mulligan: Thank you, Haley.
Haley Radke: Hey, you know what? Thank you for indulging me. I hope this did not come off as a gigantic sales pitch for the show. [00:43:00] Truthfully, we do want you to join us over on Patreon. That's how the show is sustainable and continues to grow and support more adoptees around the world. So if you go to adopteeson.com/partner, join us there.
But Adoptees Off Script is so fun for me. I get to be a little bit more casual and a little more myself. In my regular interviews I really try to highlight the guest and have it be all about them, with a few exceptions I'll insert myself here and there, but on Off Script you get to know me a little bit better, so I would invite you to join us.
The other fun thing is, the shop really is cool. It's open; there's lots of cool stuff in there. Adopteeson.com/shop. It may sound like a giant sales pitch, I apologize for that. And also that's the way the show can keep going and become self-sustaining and I guess it's my full-time job now. So who knew that would ever be a thing. [00:44:00]
I am so glad you stuck around. Thank you so much. I'd love to have you in the Book Club and if that's not on your radar, No problem. One way to support the show is to share one episode with one friend that you know that's adopted. It makes a huge difference. It might really impact their life.
I was really humbled a few days ago when I had a friend say they knew someone who literally was contemplating taking their life. They listened to an episode of the Healing Series and reached out for help and has really come around to addressing some depression that they had going on and some of those underlying adoption issues.
Honestly, guys, just share the show so people know they're not alone. There's so many adoptees that are hurting and lonely. And you can help them to know they're not alone, just by sharing an episode of the show with them. [00:45:00] It's such a gift. So thank you for doing that. I really appreciate it.
And I thank you for thinking adoptee voices are important and for honoring them. Whether you are an adoptee and you are listening to your peers here, you're welcome. If you feel like you're sitting with us having a cup of coffee with us or if you are a first parent and you wish you had a relationship with your child that has been taken. Or you are an adoptive parent and you're really hoping that your adopted child will grow up and still feel loved and whole, and you're trying to figure out how to do that. You're welcome here. We welcome you to eavesdrop in on adoptee voices. And so thank you.
Thank you for honoring my work and my guests’ work. It's a real honor to serve here in this way. Alright, that's it. Thank you so much for listening. Back with a regular episode next week. So let's talk again next Friday. [00:46:00]
