Shannon Gibney is a writer, lecturer and professor living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She was raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the 1980s as a mixed-race kid adopted by white parents. As adult transracial adoptee who has spent over two decades unpacking the intersections of adoption, race, class, gender, power and family—and then writing a library of awarded-winning books that can help us get on board with what she’s been building: the healthy identities and communities we want for ourselves and our kids.
One of the most powerful things that Gibney’s work does is to teach readers how to hold the complexities of grief and loss, of the unknowables in adoption, of anger, of joy, of love, of hope, and then tenaciously use these things to fuel our own work. She is a model of how to turn these heavy burdens on their side so that we can imagine futures where societies acknowledge, supports and celebrates differences, and power isn’t centralized in homogenized communities.
In this month’s Book Corner, you’ll find a review of Gibney’s latest book. Hear an interview with Shannon Gibney from Minnesota Public Radio here:
https://www.mprnews.org/episode/2023/02/17/minnesota-author-shannon-gibney-on-her-new-speculative-memoir . Find out more about Shannon Gibney on her website, www.shannongibney.com