267. Putting Hard Truths Down on the Page featuring Patricia Knight Meyer

Patricia Knight Meyer joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about being a Black Market Baby during the Baby Scoop Era, coming to terms with adoption trauma, the consequences of growing up without identification, mothers who were shamed into relinquishment, solving the mystery of her birth and adoption, bringing awareness to the adoption industry and her advocacy work, the mistakes she feels she made in reunion, realizing she was in a codependent relationship with her raising mother, finding her birth father, generational trauma, not reducing the people in our memoirs to heroes and villains, learning not to send our manuscripts out too soon, creating her own imprint, pivoting from querying agents to indie presses and her new book WONDERLAND: Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption.     Also in this episode: - birth father rights -including the darker aspects of a story -debunking adoption as a win-win situation   Books mentioned in this episode: -Who is a Worthy Mother by Rebecca Wellington -The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr -The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr -Educated by Tara Westover -Wavewalker by Suzanne Heywood   Patricia Knight Meyer is an author, speaker, and adoption reform advocate. She was trafficked as an infant along a Texas hospital curb in 1970. No agency. No judge. No paperwork. Never legally adopted, she did not receive her first legally obtained birth certificate until 47 years old. Patricia tells this story in her debut memoir, WONDERLAND: Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption (Unsolicited Press, November 3, 2026). The book arrives as an IndieReader Award Winner in True Crime.    She serves on the board of the National Association of Adoptees and Parents (NAAP), where she hosts the monthly NAAP Happy Hour. Her blog, My Adopted Life, reaches a large community of adoptees and advocates. Patricia has appeared on Al Jazeera’s The Stream and HuffPost Live. Her essays have been published in Ms. Magazine, Severance Magazine, Narrative Arc, and Kinsmen Quarterly.   Connect with Patricia: WONDERLAND memoir page: https://myadoptedlife.com/wonderland-the-memoir/ Book website: https://www.wonderlandthememoir.com Audiobook on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7EZEbVZQAAFVyeaDvcnG2i Free livestream, Nov 6: Down the Rabbit Hole: The Fight for Texas Adoptee Rights Then and Now. A scene from WONDERLAND unfolds live on stage, followed by a panel on the fight to open Texas adoptees' birth certificates. https://bit.ly/TXADOPTEERIGHTS My Adopted Life: https://www.myadoptedlife.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patriciaknightmeyer Instagram (book): https://www.instagram.com/wonderlandthememoir Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Wonderlandthememoir TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@myadoptedlife YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@myadoptedlife LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patricia-ann-meyer Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/myadoptedlife.bsky.social – Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer’s Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories. She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book. More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Subscribe to Ronit’s Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank Follow Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social