NAAP Happy Hour 6.19.26 - BK Jackson & friends with readings

Join host Patricia Knight Meyer as she welcomes guest BK Jackson and friends with reading from Relative Strangers. Relative Strangers: Inheritance, Identity, and the Meaning of Kinship

What’s it like when a complete unknown is actually close family? In Relative Strangers: Inheritance, Identity, and the Meaning of Kinship—a provocative anthology curated by B.K. Jackson, with a foreword by Libby Copeland, 28 acclaimed and emerging writers explore the transformative experience of encountering unknown close relatives. These are intimate stories by those who’ve spent years longing and searching for their unknown biological families and by others shocked to discover they have parents or siblings they never dreamed of—blindsiding revelations that demand both a radical recalibration of identity and a redefinition of family. Each addresses the myriad emotions that arise in the wake of these discoveries and encounters, demonstrating that what we don’t know can hurt us, that secrets are toxic, and that truth can bring healing, redemption, and, sometimes, estrangement. Woven through is a universal question: What does it mean to be family?

B.K. (Kate) Jackson is an author; a developmental editor and a certified book coach; and a journalist with bylines in HuffPost, The Los Angeles Times, The Sun, SurvivorLit, Whale Road Review, Hippocampus Magazine, WIRED and more. She earned a BA and an MA from UCLA. Kate is the founder and editor of Severance (severancemag.com), a magazine and community for adoptees and individuals who’ve discovered misattributed parentage. She’s revising a memoir aboutmaternal abandonmentand familysecrets. She lives in Milford, Pennsylvania. Find her at www.bkjacksonwriter.com, creativelyadhd.substack.com, and halfasorrow.substack.com

Lisa Grunberger Temple University professor Lisa Grunbergeris a first-generation Americanartist. Her poetry book, FortheFuture of Girls, was nominated for an Eric Hoffer Independent Book Award. A widely published poet and essayist, her work hasappeared in The New York Times, Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal, The Southern Review, Newsday, and Manna Songs: Stories of Jewish Culture and Heritage (ELJ 2025). Her play, ALMOST PREGNANT (Next Stage Press), about Jewish identity, motherhood and assisted reproductive technologies, premiered at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. She’s working on a memoir called Me and My Makers: A Memoir of Genes, Jews and Love.

Michèle Dawson Haber writes about family secrets, identity, and step adoption. Her writing has appeared in The New YorkTimes, TheManifest Station, Salon, Oldster Magazine, and The Brevity Blog. She’s appeared on NPR’s This American Life,CBC’s Tapestry, and other popular podcasts. Her Substack, Who’s My Daddy?, explores the links between identity and having oneunknown birthparent, and she also interviews writers for Hippocampus Magazine. Michèle is a ceramic artist and worker advocate in her non-writing hours. She lives in Toronto, Canada. www.micheledhaber.com.

Danna Schmidt is a ceremonialist, medical aid in dying (MAiD) volunteer, and adoptee living in the Pacific Northwest. Shewrites aboutgrief and loss, adoption, andceremony. Her writing has appeared in The Sun and Severancemagazines, Raven Chronicles, Bending Genres, Okay Donkey, and Adoptee Voices, as well asin Maggie Oman Shannon’sCrafting Love: Sharing Our Hearts Through the Work of Our Hands. Danna is seeking representationfor her debut memoir aboutfamily secrets, the prices we payto keep them, and the power of wishcrafting to shapeshift our lives.

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