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Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · 15d

My new lyric essay is now out in The @kenyonreview.bsky.social! Read it here:

kenyonreview.org/piece/emotio...

Emotionally Self-Aware Adoptive Parent: Contract for Services - The Kenyon Review

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kenyonreview.org

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Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Jul 29

Just updated my writer bio (nikchanghoon.com) and you know what? It makes me smile. My deepest thanks to every instructor, mentor & fellow artist who's carried me (not to mention my literal words) forward, when "forward" can often feel like falling behind, falling asleep, or just plain falling.

Screenshot of author bio: Nik Chang Hoon 임창훈 (he/him) is a Korean transracial adoptee, memoirist and poet based in Minneapolis. His creative nonfiction won the 2024 Annie Dillard Prize (Bellingham Review) and was named a finalist for The Iowa Review Award in nonfiction. His poetry has appeared in The Plentitudes (Winter 2025) and the Blue Earth Review (2024 Minnesota BIPOC Emerging Writer Award Runner-Up), and was named a 2024 MAYDAY Micro-chapbook Contest finalist. His most recent essays are forthcoming in The Kenyon Review and The Texas Review, respectively.

Nik is a 2024-25 alum of the Bread Loaf, Kenyon Review and Tin House writers workshops, and will attend the 2025 Bread Loaf Writers' Conference as a staff scholar in poetry. Since 2023 he has trained under some of the United States' most acclaimed writers and poets, including Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Mitchell S. Jackson, Nicole Chung, Jami Nakamura Lin, Emilly Prado, Jenny Boully, Rajiv Mohabir, Sun Yung Shin, Q.M. Zhang, Shannon Gibney and Michael Kleber-Diggs.

LEAVE ME, DON’T LEAVE ME, his memoir-in-progress, attempts to reconstruct his adoption origin story through personal narrative, epistles to first-family members, and speculative interstitials (e.g, to converse with his non-adopted self). As he unearths his own version of the truth, he finds acceptance of the self he has gained – even at the irreversible cost of the one he has lost. The memoir also critiques intercountry adoption as a capitalistic practice and argues for reparations to the 200,000-plus Koreans exported to Western countries since the Korean War.

In past lives Nik has worked as a DEI practitioner, executive speechwriter, campaign communications director, writing center instructor and Korean high school English teacher through the Fulbright program. He enjoys taking walks with his wife and their very spoiled golden doodle, whose hobbies include barking at perfectly nice pedestrians and attempting to befriend the neighbor’s chickens.

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Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Apr 7

It began with a prompt at the 2024 Kenyon Review Writers Workshop: "Write a lyric essay that takes on an unexpected form." I wrote something, revised & delivered it at the participant reading, and was encouraged to submit it. Still in disbelief that it will appear in the @kenyonreview.bsky.social!

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Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Apr 2

There is no better feeling than meeting fellow adoptee writers who are committed to telling the historical & emotional truths about adoption #AWP25

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Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Mar 27

Adoptee writer power

Shannon Gibney @shannongibney.bsky.social · Mar 27

Thank you to everyone who came out to the “Fighting Tropes, Changing Narratives: BIPOC Adoptees Break Out” panel at #AWP2025 this morning! ✊🏽😭😭

It met so much for us to share our work and be in conversation with us…Let’s keep it up!

@thesusanito.bsky.social @alicestephens.bsky.social

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Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Mar 23

What @shannongibney.bsky.social said!

Shannon Gibney @shannongibney.bsky.social · Mar 23

Pretty much impossible to sum up what today meant and felt like at the @adopteelitfest.bsky.social . 🙏🏾✨😭😭This was the crew of 16 of us in the final roundtable reading. So rare for adoptees to feel seen, heard, held, and celebrated. I will not be forgetting today anytime soon. I love this community.

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Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Mar 22

Blown away by the work of all these adoptee writers: youtube.com/@adopteelite...

Adoptee Literary Festival

The Adoptee Literary Festival brings together writers who self-identify as having been adopted, fostered, or otherwise displaced to share their stories, make their voices heard, and reshape the narrat...

youtube.com

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Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Mar 17

My first adult memory of culture dysphoria: realizing my own language was written on the back of a package of photo paper, and not knowing exactly which one it was.

Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Mar 13

"Did you hit your word count goal today...?"

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Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Mar 11

Yesssssss

신 선 영 辛善英 Sun Yung Shin @sunyungshin.bsky.social · Mar 11

A little bit of really nice news—our picture book that touches on the Dakota Uprising, Indian boarding schools, chattel enslavement of captive Africans in the U.S., the Great Migration (as a result of ethnic cleansing), immigration, and 💛SCIENCE…is a One Book read! #minnesota #kidlit

Carol Hinz @carolhinz.bsky.social · Mar 10

Incredibly proud that the picture book WHERE WE COME FROM by Diane Wilson, @sunyungshin.bsky.social, @shannongibney.bsky.social, John Coy, and Dion MBD is a One Book | One Minnesota read this spring!

More details and resources here:
thefriends.org/minnesota-ce...

Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Mar 11

Contacted my legislators to urge restored funding for #Fulbright & #CriticalLanguageScholarship (CLS) programs. I reunited with my first mother while on a Fulbright grant in 2010 and met her again after supervising the CLS Korea program in 2016. My life literally would not be the same without them.

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Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Mar 10

On the plus side I presume they're not chasing away FedEx deliveries and barking at perfectly well-mannered pedestrians all day ;)

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Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Mar 10

I'm so glad I have a dog whose boundless energy motivates me to get up and write

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Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Mar 8

An old essay I wrote for my Korean language class ~2008. I am describing my search & reunion and clearly struggling to do so in a grammatically correct way. 3rd sentence: "I also thought a lot about whether my birth mother wouldn't want to meet me even if I wanted to meet her."

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Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Mar 7

For adoptees, what is "speculation" other than our everyday existence? Not just our alternate (non-adopted) worlds & selves, but also: what if our second parents understood adoption as a capitalist system? our first parents spoke fluent English? our searches & reunions actually worked out? etc. etc.

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Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Mar 4

Processing lately: how unconditional love can also include my own agency, boundaries & grieving over what a family member is unable to be or provide. That it's ok to be purely selfish to understand how I would want to be loved, accept how I am actually loved & grieve (let go of?) the difference

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Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Feb 28

Last night I made 떡볶이 (spicy Korean rice cake). I cook Korean food often but typically not 떡볶이and fortunately it turned out Korean wife-approved. These small victories mean a lot to me, more than I'm sometimes willing to admit. #KoreannessReclamationProject

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Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Feb 28

Omg that's ridiculous so sorry you had to experience this ignorance and meanness

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Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Feb 26

This one should be good! @adoptionmosaic.bsky.social

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Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Feb 26

Started as a nonfiction reader for a lit mag recently. It's already helping me see my own writing in new ways. Also, people format SO differently.

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Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Feb 22

I haven't heard from my first (birth) mother in a half year. Last time this happened, I was considering flying to Korea or hiring a PI. This time, with more context & processing, I am learning to accept that even if she explains later, there is much she chooses to withhold #thisisadoption

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Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Feb 20

KAAN is offering three different versions of a webinar discussion on the PBS docu that came out last fall: linktr.ee/KAANcommunity

Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Feb 19

One of the obsessions I've been writing into lately: short track speedskating. I imagine a lot, wish a lot, regret some about starting this sport so late. Leaning into turns (always left, lol) feels like what my body was designed to do. Hockey was ... not 😂

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Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Feb 19

Best goal to be behind on ever!

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Nik Nadeau 임창훈 @nikchanghoon.bsky.social · Feb 18

Can't imagine my memoir project, writing life nor my human heart w/o @tinhouse.bsky.social Winter Workshop & our brilliant CNF workshop leader @nicolechung.bsky.social. "Back to writing" never felt so good! Deep thanks to @almajor.bsky.social & Lance Cleland for investing so much in us as writers.

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