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Acknowledgments Although the contributors to this book vary greatly in their relationship to the adoptee search movement, this book would never have happened without that movement. Before discussing adoption in literature and culture could become a collective enterprise, adoption itself had to enter into public discussion. Two of the people who contributed most to that discussion, in both their books and their activism, are Jean Paton and BettyJean Lifton. Theyboth also took the time to give me individual advice in my search for birth parents, as I broke my own silence about adoption. Years later, Jean Paton made available to me the resources of her Museum of Orphanhood-her collection of books about adoptees and orphans, then in Colorado. More recently, Betty Jean Lifton read and commented on an earlier version ofthe introduction to this volume. Penny Partridge and Katie Lee Crane welcomed me to the 1993 American Adoption Congress meeting, my first, and shared their own writings and literary interests. Other adoptee activists who encouraged me and shared information, literary and otherwise, are Amy Jane Cheney, Janine Baer,William Gage (who maintains an on-line bibliography on adoption), Anne Steytler, and Jean Vincent (who has kept Pittsburgh Adoption Lifeline going for more than twenty years). Two other friends who helped by sharing memories of their own experiences with adoptive and foster families are Suzanne Polen and Jim Simmonds. At the Modern Language Association Convention in Toronto, also in 1993, I met, for the first time, other literary academics interested in writing about adoption: Margot Backus, Jill Roberts (now Jill Deans), Eric Goodheart, Tanya Gardiner-Scott, and Giavanna Munafo. The support of Margot and Jill, especially , has been very important in the development of this volume. I came into contact with them, and with most of my contributors, because the MLA published in its newsletter my calls for papers on adoption in literature. The MLA also sponsored events that contributed to the essays here by Garry Leonard and Nancy Gish. I would like to thank the Three Rivers Adoption Council for the use of their library; Elizabeth Bartholet for sending me her book and other information ; Wayne Carp, Judith Modell, and Maureen Molloy for copies of their articles; Meredith Skura and Heather Dubrow for their encouragement and letters (and Heather for a prepublication copy of her book chapter); Tess O'Toole for her comments on my introduction; and Carol Singley, founding cochair with me of the Alliance for the Study of Adoption, Identity, and Kinship, for much advice and help. Judith introduced me to LeAnn Fields, whose editorial support and advice have been crucial. Vlll Acknowledgments Acknowledgments are also due to Fred Small, Jackie Kay, and Sandra McPherson for permission to reprint their lyrics, interview, and poetry; to Nineteenth -Century Literature for permission to reprint Tess O'Toole's essay; and to the Center for Instructional Design and Distance Education of the University of Pittsburgh for help with photography. Last, I would like to thank my husband and daughter, David and Liz Carrier , for their support in this project, and my two mothers, Dorothy Kern (190488 ) and Geraldine Govier, for their love. ...

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