Julie Ryan McGue is an adoptee, identical twin and the author of three published works of nonfiction. In her presentation for the Monday Evening Speaker Series on May 12, Julie will talk about the realities of her adoption and unique family dynamics, how she navigated the adoption search and reunion experience, and why those journeys led to penning two memoirs. Julie believes that through storytelling and memoir, adoptees validate their own experiences, challenge cultural myths about adoption, and begin to mend the emotional wounds that adoption’s secrecy and shame have left behind. Each participant who attends the presentation will be entered into a drawing to receive one of Julie’s books.

About Julie
Julie Ryan McGue is an American writer, a domestic adoptee, and an identical twin. 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). Her work has appeared in multiple journals, anthologies, and online sites, such as Writer’s Digest, Story Circle Network Journal, Brevity Nonfiction Blog, Adoption.com and Severance Magazine. She also writes a bi-weekly blog and monthly column for her hometown newspaper 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. If she’s not visiting with her six grandsons, she’s at her computer, or on the tennis court!