Take the following quiz:

Name the five wealthiest people in the world. Name the last five Heisman Trophy winners. Name the last five winners of the Miss America contest. Name the last five Academy Award winners for best actor and actress. Name five people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer prize.

How’d you do?

Now take the following quiz:

List five teachers who aided your journey through school. Name five friends who have helped you through... more

What are your motives for adopting? In the last post, I shared excerpts from Kristin Swick Wong’s book, Carried Safely Home, in which she worked through whether she was adopting for altruistic or selfish reasons. She writes:

We adopted children because God commands that we care for the poor. And we adopted children because these two boys were grafted into our hearts, because we loved them and had to pursue them, because our family would not be complete without... more

Everyone who considers adopting a child wrestles with the question: What are my motives for adopting?

In her book, Carried Safely Home, Kristin Swick Wong explains that she read books, hoping they would shed some light on the subject:

Some authors cautioned that adoption should not be pursued as a means to care for the poor. They told us not to adopt with the motivation of helping others but rather for ourselves, because we really wanted a child. One author advised,... more

I recently read a wonderful book called Building an Effective Women’s Ministry, by Sharon Jaynes. In one chapter, Amanda Bailey, who started Hannah’s Heart ministry for women experiencing infertility and miscarriage, shares how she began her program.

She started with some nonnegotiables... more

The results of a new study show that adoptive parents spend more time reading to their children, helping them with homework, exposing them to cultural activities, eating together, talking with them about their problems, and attending religious services than biological parents.

In an Associated Press article, Indiana University sociologist Brian Powell, one of the study’s three co-authors, said that one of the reasons adoptive parents invest more “is that they really want children, and they go to extraordinary means to have them.”

He also commented, “Adoptive parents face a culture where, to many other people, adoption is not real parenthood. What they're trying to do is compensate…They... more

Soliciting endorsements—those pithy “blurbs” touting a book’s merits that appear on book covers and on the flyleaf—is one of the most frightening and exhilarating moments of the book-publishing process.

First, I had to decide who I would beg ask to endorse my books. “What famous people do I know who have a connection to adoption?” I mused. Hmmm.

I could count them on less than one hand. Not a good start.

I decided I needed to meet some famous people with adoption connections. And I did. I can’t tell you how I did, because that would... more

A galley is a pre-production, typeset “proof” of a book. I have some experience with galleys because I’ve ogled the galleys of my friend, Jenn Doucette’s books (she and her wonderful new book, Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This, will be featured on my blog Feb 23).

But knowing what a galley looks like didn’t diminish my excitement... more

In the previous post, I began updating you on “the state of the books” – my journey through the publishing industry in the quest to get two books about adoption published. Today, we’ll talk about book covers.

The long-awaited cover proof for The Adoption Decision: 15 Things You Want to Know Before Adopting arrived last week. After the hoopla concerning the book’s title, I’d been a tad anxious that we’d go though the same thing again with the cover. Not so. The cover is beautiful! It has several colorful photos that depict children of different ages and ethnicities. The title and subtitle are nice and bold. It looks classy.... more

Publishing industry statistics say that over 80 percent of people believe they have a book inside of them, just waiting to be written.

I had two adoption books inside of me, and I actually wrote them. I’m simultaneously working with two publishers, and my books will be released this summer, just a few weeks apart. When it rains, it pours!

For those interested in this newbie author’s perspective on the publishing industry, I’ll be updating you on my books’ progress during the next few posts.

My books now have official titles. Drumroll, please…………

The Adoption Decision: 15 Things You... more

In her book Carried Safely Home, Kristin Swick Wong reflects:

“Some people feel that adoptive families are fragile, not quite real. Adoptive families retort that we are not different. Our joys and trials are as authentic as those of any family that is genetically linked. Perhaps we do not want to be different because we do not want adoption to disrupt the flow of our... more