Julie writes about finding out who you are, where you come from, and making sense of it.
Julie Ryan McGue is an American writer, a domestic adoptee, and an identical twin.
Her first memoir, Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging (She Writes Press), released in May 2021, won multiple awards.
Her work has appeared in Writers Digest, Story Circle Network Journal, Brevity Nonfiction Blog, Imprint News, Adoption.com, Adopting.com, Lifetime Adoption Adoptive Families Blog, Adoption & Beyond, and Severance Magazine.
Her personal essays have appeared in several anthologies, including Real Women Write: Seeing Through Her Eyes (Story Circle Network), Real Women Write: The Power of Friendship (Story Circle Network) and Art in the Time of Unbearable Crisis (She Writes Press).
Her collection of essays, Belonging Matters: Conversations on Adoption, Family, and Kinship (Muse Literary) released in November 2023. She writes a bi-weekly blog and monthly column (The Beacher Newspapers), in which she explores the topics of finding out who you are, where you belong and making sense of it. Julie splits her time between northwest Indiana and Sarasota, Florida.
Her third book, Twice the Family: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Sisterhood (She Writes Press) released February 4, 2025.
Julie Ryan McGue is an American writer, a domestic adoptee, and an identical twin. She writes about finding out who you are, where you belong and making sense of it. She is the author of three published works: Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging (She Writes Press, 2021), Belonging Matters: Conversations on Adoption, Family, and Kinship (Muse Literary, 2023), and Twice the Family: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Sisterhood (She Writes Press, Feb. 2025). Julie splits her time between northwest Indiana and Sarasota, Florida. If she’s not visiting with her six grandsons, she’s either at her computer or on the tennis court!
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.
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Topics I Speak About
Adoption, Adversity, Abandonment
As well as:
- Finding Resilience, Acceptance, Forgiveness, and Healing
- Importance of identity, family, kinship and seeking belonging
- Journaling to add meaning and depth to life’s tender moments.
- The importance of seeking support or counseling
- What it is like to be a twin and an adoptee
- Crafting essays, blogs, and memoir from life’s precious moments
- Why adoption search and reunion are not for everyone
- The Baby Scoop Era and closed versus open adoption
Podcast Highlights
Follow Me
April 20, from 6-7:30 PM ET, I will be at the New Buffalo Township Library in New Buffalo, Michigan conducting a workshop on how to write compelling memoir. (This is a rescheduled event.)
June 20, I look forward to connecting with fellow local authors at the Chicago Writer’s Association conference in downtown Chicago. This year’s event will be held at The Steppenwolf Theatre.
June 25-28, I will attend the American Library Association (ALA) conference and exhibition at Chicago’s McCormick Place. I will be signing books at the IBPA booth, details to follow.
July 16-19, I plan on attending the Understory Writer’s Conference again in Park City, Utah.
Aug. 15, DJ and Lulu Go to the Car Wash—the next book in my children’s literature series, Let’s Go With Lulu—will be published by Muse Literary. And I'm pleased to announce that book three is already in the works.
October 9-11, Next Fall, I will attend the She Writes Press author retreat at the Westin Rancho Mirage Resort in Palm Springs, CA with keynote addresses from Christina Baker Kline, Gina Frangello, and Piper Kerman. Thrilled to be selected as a panelist for the panel, “Marketing for Memoirists.”
The audiobook for Twice the Family, A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Sisterhood released on Audible (ACX) on February 4th. It’s also available on Spotify, Story Tel, Audiobooksnow, hoopla, CHIRP, and KOBO.
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.
