In time for National Soup Month, One Potato, a popular food blog, published my essay “Of Love and Borscht,” based on an A Family, Maybe excerpt – with our family borscht recipe! So glad others can try their hand at it too. 😋
Beets, cabbage, potatoes, and a story to go with them… You can read a portion on the One Potato site, the rest hidden behind the paywall, or the full text here on my site. Enjoy!
PS. I actually subscribed to the One Potato newsletter: healthy family recipes every week.
Award-winning YA author Stacey Horan interviewed me on her popular literary podcast! We talk about books, writing, and parenting.
“In his book A Family, Maybe, Lane details the challenges—legal, political, and personal—that he and his partner Jonathan faced trying to adopt their two foster children through the Los Angeles County child welfare system.
Along that journey, Lane amassed a vast collection of paperwork and court orders, hundreds of emails, and a diary detailing his family’s everyday experiences and struggles. Four years passed before Lane was able to open the boxes and look at the documents he’d collected, and it took him eight years to produce a draft of the story.
Writing it was a painful process but a rewarding one. A Family, Maybe is a story about building a family and discovering what it means to be a father. But ultimately, it is a story about love.
In this episode, I’ll chat with Lane about his writing journey, how his and Jonathan’s relationship and their racial and ethnic backgrounds affected the adoption process, and the support they received from unexpected places.“
-Stacey Horan, The Bookshop at the End of the Internet
The Bookshop at the End of the Internet, Episode #211 | 35 min. | Listen at https://dub.sh/bookshop
Also available on Apple Podcasts, Audible, Amazon Music, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and YouTube.
Touched by a passionate and thoughtful review by the Bookstagram critic Kristi Toscano. She hit on a few thorny ethical issues my book is highlighting.
“What was at stake? Everything.”
OMG the second hand frustration and anger I feel on behalf of these two men for what they were put through is REAL, man. It’s real. Ya ya I get that, in the eyes of the court, biological parental rights are paramount. But is that truly what is in the best interest of the CHILD, though? Is it?? In many instances that I have seen firsthand that answer would be a resounding no.
Hats off to these two brave men who navigated not only adoption as a gay couple in the early 2000’s but also the fight for the right to simply marry. A Family, Maybe is a heartfelt and endearing story that is ultimately about the power of love.
“One thing that never ceases to shock me in our foster-adoption process is the extraordinary disparity between the standard set for the natural vs. adoptive parents, intending to raise the same children.”
Tour stop #12: an exhilarating day speaking on the “We Are Family” panel at the third annual Pride on the Page in Palm Springs alongside Lucas Hildebrand and Penelope Starr. We shared the stories behind our books, discussed writing about our families and communities, answered the questions from the audience.
Mei Ling Tom, who deftly moderated the panel, ended it by reciting some of the sheva brachot from my book, the 7 blessings from Jonathan and I wrote for our wedding. That was unexpected and moving. The bookstore sold all 10 copies of my book, and I signed a few.
Many thanks to Palm Springs Public Library Foundation and Corey Roskin, a tireless advocate for queer literature, for organizing the event and inviting me.
Tour stop #11: Spoke on the WeHo Reads authors panel organized by the City of West Hollywood to commemmorate National Coming Out Day and read two excerpts from A Family, Maybe.
Together, as part of our discussion about creating and writing about queer families and communities, writers Meliza Bañales, Hazel Kight Witham, the moderator Cody Sisco, and I explored the following questions:
We reflected on the evolution of coming out with the rise in equality and visibility of LGBTQ+ individuals and families. Our conversation addressed giving and receiving love in the families we build or choose, pathways to LGBTQ parenting, as well as the power of being out, the power of community, and the power of storytelling for families and folks in the margins.
Through sharing our writing, stories, and insights, I felt that our experiences added up to something bigger than us, a wider, more vibrant vision of family and community.
WeHo Reads is a literary series presented by the City of West Hollywood and produced by BookSwell, a literary events and media company dedicated to lifting up writers from historically excluded communities. Additional support is provided by media partnerships with Book Soup (where I had spoken on Father’s Day this year) and the Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB).
Thanks for inviting me, WeHo Reads, and Happy Coming Out Day!
Watch the complete recording of the panel here and drop me a note or comment!
Tour stop #10: pines, cedars, sunny skies, and books! Here I got to talk about A Family, Maybe to both locals and the tourists who ascended to Idyllwild (elevation 6,000 feet) to escape the heat of the deserts and valleys down below.
Glad to have participated and thank you, The Friends of the Idyllwild Library, for inviting me back after my talk at the library in August.
Tour stop #9: first annual BSBF, Long Beach, Sept. 22. This being my first fair, I learned a lot about how to present the book to potential readers, what to bring, what not to bring, and so on. I sold a few books and had a lot of great conversations with the fair browsers. I also made a few more contacts with fellow LongBeach-based writers. A wonderful experience all around!
Tour stop #8: an author talk on a rainy night in Mexico City. I was hosted by Graeme Lowy, a Canadian graphic artist, at #Hashtag Gallery, his trendy, modern art gallery in the Condesa neighborhood.
As usual, it started with a talk and a reading, and continued with a Q&A, which lasted well into the evening, about adoption, but also borders, languages, cultures.
I find that the story clicks with the audience, no matter where I take it, and even if the audience is bilingual. That’s encouraging.
My essay about entering the empty-nesting stage of parenting appears in this week’s Jewish Journal, barely a few days after we dropped off our younger daughter at her campus. (And yes, that’s her in one of the photos, opening the door to her dorm, and to her future).
To me, parenting and spirituality are interwoven in that one informs the other: I attempt to bring what I learn from my religious and mindful practices into how I raise my kids, yet the experience of raising them has also taught me a great deal about wisdom and ethics. In that sense, my daughters have been my spiritual teachers. Now that this experience is taking on a new shape, I find myself adrift and searching for answers and comfort, which is what this essay is about.
I’ve been clutching to the idea that my kids would always live with me, that I would always direct and control their lives to their benefit, and be able to protect them from the dangers of this world. This would be . . . selfish as it would really primarily benefit me, prolonging the familiar and comfortable parent-child relationship we had when they were kids, rather than letting it evolve into a more mature bond between a parent and an adult child.
I’ve been clutching to the idea that my kids would always live with me, that I would always direct and control their lives to their benefit, and be able to protect them from the dangers of this world. This would be . . . selfish as it would really primarily benefit me, prolonging the familiar and comfortable parent-child relationship we had when they were kids, rather than letting it evolve into a more mature bond between a parent and an adult child. [. . .]
You can read the online version of the essay here. In the print edition, it takes up page 24 of the issue. Those of you who subscribe to my monthly Jewish mindfulness newsletter, Blessing the Sea, will recognize some of the reflections in the essay.
Tour stop #7. So meaningful to speak here as Idyllwild Library was such a big part of our kids’ routine since they were very small: storytimes, reading contests, hauling bags of books and movies home every week.
I actually wrote the bulk of the AFM draft here as well over several summers while the kids would be at the day camp nearby. Idyllwild is also featured present in the book, including the library itself.
Thank you, everyone who came and library staff, past and present, who hosted my talk!
Lane Igoudin | Author, Professor, Dad