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Artists Rachael Romero ​ ​ Australian born artist, Rachael Romero, was in one of the infamous convent-run Magdalene laundries for 9 months as a teenager in Adelaide, South Australia. After two years at the South Australian School of Art, she raised the funds to leave Australia and travel around Europe and on to the United States. She has lived in New York for many years, practicing and teaching art. She holds a double Masters from Antioch University. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir The Convent Marie Hargreaves 2020 When a fancy car pulls up outside six-year-old Marie's home in 1959, her dad tells her she is going on holiday. But little does she know she will not see her home again for four long years. Her family cannot afford to keep her at home. Marie tells the story of how she was taken away from a poor, but happy and loving home life, to live in a convent - away from everyone and everything she holds dear. Her hair is bluntly chopped, her clothes are taken away, and her name is changed. Then a horrific ritual of physical, sexual and mental abuse begins. Even after the convent closes, Marie is unable to share details of her suffering with anyone. But when a police investigation is launched, and she realises that the time has finally come to tell the truth... External Website

Actors Tiffany Haddish ​ ​ Eritrean-American actor and comedian, Tiffany Haddish (1979) was in residential, foster and kinship care as a child. Tiffany Haddish was born in Los Angeles, California. She was around 3 years old when her father, a refugee from Eritrea, abandoned the family. When Tiffany was nearly 9, her mother, Leola, had a car accident and suffered brain damage which made it difficult to care appropriately for her children. Tiffany therefore spent several years in the foster care system from the age of 12 or 13 before going to stay with her grandmother. Tiffany’s social worker encouraged the girl to attend the Laugh Factory Comedy Camp to learn how to do stand-up comedy. Haddish credits the Comedy Camp with having changed her life. After guest-starring on several television series, Haddish gained prominence with her role as Nekeisha Williams on the NBC sitcom The Carmichael Show. After appearing in the 2016 comedy film Keanu, her breakthrough came in 2017 with her role as Dina in the comedy film Girls Trip, for which she garnered critical acclaim. In 2017, she published her memoir, The Last Black Unicorn.Haddish currently stars in the TBS series The Last O.G. and recently voiced Tuca in the Netflix animated series Tuca & Bertie. External Website

Actors Carol Grace ​ ​ Carol Grace (b. September 11, 1924 – July 21, 2003) was an American actress and author. She is often referred to as Carol Marcus Saroyan or Carol Matthau. Mother Rosheen Marcus gave birth to Grace aged 16 - who said Leslie Howard was the father. Carol married writer William Saroyan twice (she said he was abusive) and then actor Walter Matthau. She was placed in foster care until the age of eight. She has written about her experiences in The Secret in the Daisy. External Website

Academic Articles From Hagiography to Personal Pain: Stories of Australian foster care from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century Dee Michell 2017 Stories - fictional, biographical, and autobiographical - are one way in which we can imagine what it has been like to experience foster care in Australia. In this paper Dee Michell looks at the trends in stories told about foster care from the nineteenth century, across the twentieth, and into the early twenty-first century. While exploring these trends, Michell makes some observations about the shift from fictional accounts where foster parents and foster children were heroic characters to often searing tales of hurt and trauma inflicted on children in foster care by violent women and men. External Website

Artists Melissa Gilbert ​ ​ Melissa Ellen Gilbert (born May 8, 1964) is an American actress, television director, producer, politician and former president of the Screen Actors Guild. Melissa Gilbert was given up for adoption as soon as she was born, and adopted by actors Barbara Crane and Paul Gilbert. Gilbert began her career as a child actress in the late 1960s, appearing in numerous commercials and guest starring roles on television. From 1974 to 1984, she starred as Laura Ingalls Wilder, the second oldest daughter of Charles Ingalls (played by Michael Landon) on the NBC series Little House on the Prairie. During the run of Little House, In 2009, her autobiography Prairie Tale: A Memoir, was released. In 2014, she wrote a short story for children, called Daisy and Josephine as well as My Prairie Cookbook: Memories and Frontier Food from My Little House to Yours. External Website

Actors Cassidy Mack ​ ​ Spending her early years in the Foster Care system, Cassidy was adopted at the age of six. At the age of fourteen, Cassidy found her own foundation to encourage young people in the foster care system to reach their potential. After a meeting with actor Ryan Goslind, Cassidy to become an actor. Some of her favourite roles are playing Zoey in Zoey to the Max and Jen in The Storyteller. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Damaged: Heartbreaking Stories of the Kids Trapped in Britain's Broken Care System Chris Wild 2018 Chris Wild lost his dad aged 11, leaving him to grow up in the care system. There, he witnessed the incessant physical and sexual abuse of children, with the only escape leading to the streets. So many others like him, failed by the systems put in place to protect them, ended up with nothing but drink, drugs, prostitution, and crime as their normality. Later, working in a care home himself became the only way Chris could help, but he was shocked to discover little had changed and vulnerable children were still being failed. In Damaged, he shares heartbreaking memories of the care system along with the stories of all the boys, girls, men, and women he met along the way—exposing why we must take action now to protect all of Britain's forgotten children. External Website

Actors Ray Liotta ​ ​ Raymond Allen Liotta (born December 18, 1954) is an American actor and producer. He is best known for playing Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams (1989), playing Henry Hill in Goodfellas (1990) and voicing Tommy Vercetti in the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002). Raymond Allen Liotta was born in Newark, New Jersey, on December 18, 1954. Having been abandoned at an orphanage, he was adopted at the age of six months by township clerk Mary and auto-parts store owner Alfred Liotta. His adoptive parents each unsuccessfully ran for local office; he recalls attending parades to hand out flyers for his father's run. Liotta has a sister, Linda, who is also adopted. He has said that he knew he was adopted as a young child and presented a show-and-tell report on it for kindergarten. He hired a private detective to locate his biological mother in the 2000s, and subsequently learned from her that he is mostly of Scottish descent. He has one biological sister, one biological half-brother, and five biological half-sisters. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Childhood: A Memoir Shannon Burns 2022 In this powerful memoir, Australian academic and writer Shannon Burns describes his difficult childhood being bounced from difficult situation to difficult situation, including foster care, kinship care and respite care. Along the way he develops a number of skills which enable him to survive, and later to thrive. These include reading (a welcome escape), writing, and an ability to adapt. External Website

Actors Rajesh Khanna ​ ​ Rajesh Khanna, born Jatin Khanna; 29 December 1942 – 18 July 2012) was an Indian actor, film producer and politician who is best known for his work in the Hindi cinema. Rahesh was adoped by relatives of his parents. He is referred to as the "First Superstar" of Indian cinema. He starred in 15 consecutive solo hit films from 1969 to 1971, a record unbroken. During his career he appeared in more than 168 feature films and 12 short films. He received the Filmfare Best Actor Award three times and the BFJA Awards for Best Actor (Hindi) four times. In 2014, his biography Rajesh Khanna – The untold story of India's first Superstar by Yasser Usman was published by Penguin Books. In 2018, a one kilometre fitness trail in Lajpat Nagar National Park was named after Khanna, which was inaugurated by his wife Dimple Kapadia. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Fifty-One Moves. Ben Ashcroft 2013 A 'Going Straight' genre life story which breaks new ground in taking as its focus the vagaries of the child care system and in doing so is re-assuring for professionals and young people in care alike. It is a shocking fact that whilst just one per cent of young people enter care to be 'looked after' by a local authority, foster parents and in children's homes, a whopping 27 per cent of prisoners have been in care at some time or another. Ben Ashcroft was one of these. Altogether - as the book's title implies - he was moved 51 times from his first placement as a ten-year-old until he left care at age 16, as he drifted into penal custody. With his experiences of young offender institutions behind him and out of trouble for ten years, his is a positive example of personal change. External Website

Actors Pierce Brosnan (actor) ​ ​ Pierce Brosnahan (Brosnan) was born on 16 May 1953. His father abandoned the family when Brosnan was an infant. When he was four years old, his mother moved to London to work as a nurse. From that point on, he was largely brought up by his maternal grandparents, Philip and Kathleen Smith. After their deaths, he lived with an aunt and then an uncle, but was subsequently sent to live in a boarding house run by a woman named Eileen. The young Pierce Brosnan began his working life as a trainee commercial artist, until a colleague invited him to join his theatre club. From there he joined with others to form the Oval House Theater Company, working during the day in a range of jobs to support himself. After two years Pierce decided to study acting at the Drama Centre of London and worked on stage at the West End. He moved to Los Angeles in 1982 with his first wife, Australian Cassandra Harris. Soon after he was cast as Special Agent Ben Pearson in the American police procedural, Remington Steele, which aired first in 1982 and continued production until 1987. Brosnan began in the role of James Bond in 1994 and made 4 films in that role. External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters Imagining Adoption. Marianne Novy (Editor) 2001 Imagining Adoption (2001) is one of the earliest academic works to explore the representation of adoption in novels (George Elliott), children’s literature (Anne of Green Gables), contemporary fiction (Jeanette Winterson), poetry (Jacki Kay) ,and film (Losing Isaiah). The scholarly essays also explore magazine articles written by adopting mothers and newsletters produced by adoptee rights organisations. Some contributors argue that adoption affects the minds of adopted people when they write, even if they’re not writing about adoption. External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters Voices of the Lost Children of Greece: Oral Histories of Cold War International Adoption Mary Cardaras (Editor) 2023 The edited volume by Mary Cardaras, Voices of the Lost Children of Greece: Oral Histories of Cold War International Adoption (2023, Anthem Press) is a unique collection of life stories by Greek born people who were adopted by Americans (primarily). In the opening chapter, Gonda Van Steen sets out what she has identified as 4 waves of “mass adoptions” of Greek children to the US for 20 years after the end of the Greek Civil War (1946-1949). This is followed by 14 life stories by adoptees. A common theme in the stories is that of looking different and the amazement of returning to Greece and finding relatives who look like the adopted person. External Website

Authors O Visibly Invisible - The tale of a Black Female Social Worker ➝ Back to Top

Autobiography/Memoir Goodbye, Mummy Darling Susan Tickner 2003 This is the story of Susan's journey from foster care in England to being shipped out to Australia when she was nine. External Website

Actors Sophie Willan ​ ​ Sophie Willan was born 1987 and is a British actress and comedian. She grew up in Bolton, and spent time in care as a child as her mother was a heroin addict. In 2016 she took her debut stand up show On Record, based on her experiences of growing up in and out of the care system, to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. A total sell out run and phenomenal critical acclaim followed, with a smash hit nationwide tour in 2017 and a commission to adapt the show into a BBC Radio 4 series. Sophie is a Care Leaver, who’s personal experiences are part of her life’s mission; to empower, represent and advocate for care experienced young people and marginalised children and adults. In 2015, Sophie founded non-profit organisation, Stories Of Care; a dynamic and rebellious writing and outreach organisation, that work exclusively with exceptional new writers, from diverse backgrounds. They offer long-term developmental support to their participants so that they can become creative leaders and make personal and political work that smashes through the glass ceilings across Theatre, Radio, Stand-Up, Television and Literature. As an Executive Producer on her BBC Two sitcom, Alma’s Not Normal, Sophie has also instigated a paid training programme for young people from low income and Care Experienced backgrounds on the production. External Website

Authors A Charlotte Ayanna ➝ Back to Top

Autobiography/Memoir Daffodils - Audiobook Louise Beech 2022 Content warning: suicide 2019. Dawn. The River Humber. A misty February walk. Surprise early daffodils. A picture taken. Then forgotten. Because five hours later, my world shattered. My mother jumped off the Humber Bridge. Had those yellow flowers not delayed me, I might have been there. Could I have stopped her? In the aftermath of this violent act, I turned to my writing, to my beloved siblings, to our only uncle. I was forced to look at events that led to this suicide attempt. At relationships wrecked by alcoholism. At chronic depression. At our care records. At my childhood. At my mother. At buried trauma never fully explored before. At myself.... When I much later found the picture of those surprise daffodils, I knew it was time to write about that day. I began typing the story that inspired so many of my fictional characters, that shaped the testing things they endured. My own story. External Website