About Julie McGue
OFFICIAL BIO & PRESS KIT
Welcome to my online home! I’m an author–memoirist, essayist, and columnist– who writes about finding out who you are, where you come from, and making sense of it.
On this site, you will find information about my books, media events, links to my bi-monthly blog posts, and material relating to adoption. While many of my “That Girl This Life” essays focus on identity, family, and belonging, I also love to spotlight the quirky and tender moments which add color to daily life.
At 48, I was sent for a breast biopsy. This incident highlighted what closed adoption prevented me from knowing: my birth circumstances, family medical history, and genealogy. The subsequent search for my “personal story” consumed five years. I chronicle that journey in my debut memoir Twice a Daughter: A Search for Family, Identity, and Belonging (She Writes Press, May 11, 2021).
The prequel to Twice a Daughter, titled Twice the Family, A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Sisterhood, releases on Feb. 4, 2025 (She Writes Press). It is a coming-of-age memoir, set in Chicago’s western suburbs between the 1960s and ‘80s, a time when my twin sister and I provide our parents with an instant family. Our sisterly bond holds tight as we strive for identity, individuality, and belonging. But as our parents continue adding children to the family, some painful and tragic experiences test family values, parental relationships, and sibling bonds.
My collection of essays, Belonging Matters: Conversations on Adoption, Family & Kinship (Muse Literary, November 1, 2023) is a compilation of my favorite “That Girl This Life” blog posts, essays from the monthly column I write for The Beacher Newspapers in Michiana, and other published work. I wrote Belonging Matters to serve as a companion piece to Twice a Daughter. It is meant to support the adoption community and to create a conversation with those not touched by adoption.
Besides being a writer, I’m a mother, grandmother, and an identical twin. Life has provided me many roles to play and experiences to share. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been filling up journals and binders with stories and reminiscences.
My wish is that you stay here, linger, and find writing that resonates. Upon leaving, I hope you take with you a fresh new idea, perspective, or topic to share with others.
MORE ABOUT ME
My twin sister and I were adopted together at three weeks old. I have always known I am adopted. For most of my life, my closed adoption prevented me from knowing my birth circumstances, family medical history, and genealogy. Then at 48, I was sent for a breast biopsy.
It was this health scare that compelled me to launch the search for my “personal story.”
For five years, I battled rigid state adoption statutes, search roadblocks, misinformation, lies and profound rejection before claiming the information most people take for granted. To access my “personal story,” I needed the help of a search angel, my adoption agency, a social worker, a confidential intermediary, a PI, and a genealogist. I chronicle this adoption search journey in my debut memoir Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging, which comes out in May 2021 by She Writes Press (2019 Indie Publisher of the Year).
I have always loved to write. Before I crafted my quest memoir for publication, I was engrossed in writing a novel–I still plan on finishing it! I’m also a committed journaler. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been filling notebooks with reflections, reminiscences, quotes, and stories. I just love notebooks–it doesn’t matter if they’re the spiral bound variety or the Mead black-and-white composition books. Even though I spend most of my time writing on a laptop, there is a bound notepad within my reach. There’s something about squeezing thoughts into tidy black lines that sparks unexpected creativity.
My weekly That Girl, This Life blog which focuses on identity, family and life’s quirky moments is published on my website. In addition to memoir and personal essays, I write a monthly column for my local paper The Beacher. Some of my guest blogs have appeared on Brevity’s Nonfiction Blog, Dear Adoption, and Lifetime Adoption-The Adoptive Families Blog. In the spring of 2018, I was selected to read the opening chapter of my memoir at AmpLitFest in New York City.
HOW WE CAN STAY IN TOUCH
Email: julie@juliemcgueauthor.com
Author website: www.juliemcgueauthor.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/juliemcguewrites
Twitter: @juliermcgue
Instagram: @julieryanmcgue
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/julie-mcgue-a246b841
Join me on Social Media
Follow Me
April 8 & 29 from 1:30-2:30 ET Julie will teach a webinar for the Author Learning Center, titled “How to Write Memoir That Reads Like Fiction.” You can sign up, here.
April 9: Julie will discuss her new book Twice the Family with the Longboat Key Club (LBKC) Book Club from 12 noon to 1:30 ET. Members can sign up on the club website.
April 10: Julie will participate virtually in a Hinsdale IL Book Club discussing her new book, Twice the Family.
April 17: Vine & Verse: A Night of Wine & Words from 6-8 at Lum’s Cellars in Maplewood NJ. Julie will join fellow authors, Laura Gaddis (author of Mosaic), Kathleen Somers (author of Barely Visible) and Joanne De Simone (author of Fall and Recovery). Each author will discuss their book, do a short reading, and participate in a Q&A. (Words) Bookstore will be on hand to sell books at the event. Register here.
April 28: Julie and her twin sister Jenny will participate together in the APOM (Austin Parents of Multiples) Twin Panel at 8 PM ET.
May 24: Twice the Family is the “Book of the Day” at the OnlineBookClub.com.
June 18: Julie has been invited back to the Pottawatomie CC Book Club in Michigan City, IN at 6 PM CT to discuss her recent release, Twice the Family.
Aug. 13: Julie will join the Adoption Knowledge Affiliates Book Club at 7 PM CT to discuss Twice the Family.
Aug. 24-28: Julie will attend the HerSpirit Writing Retreat at the Chaminade Resort & Spa in Santa Cruz, CA organized by StorySummit.
If you missed Julie’s participation in the virtual author panel: Inside the Adoption Experience on 3/11, you can listen to the recording here.
Follow Julie by visiting her website, subscribe to her bimonthly newsletters, and listen to previous podcast recordings where she discusses topics like adoption, identity, family relationships, sisterhood and belonging.
