Relative Strangers

In the year 7 season finale I was so excited to chat with B.K. Jackson (aka Kate), the incredible founder of Severance magazine and editor of the brilliant new essay collection, Relative Strangers. We had a great conversation into her incredibly complex discovery story which includes 9 siblings, and we spoke about the healing power of storytelling.

Resources Mentioned:

Relative Strangers edited by B.K. Jackson

Severance Magazine edited by B.K. Jackson

B.K. Jackson's ADHD Substack 

NPE Stories Patreon

NPE Stories facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/NPEstories

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

When I was nine months old, my mother left the family. She had had a son when she was 17. She'd had an affair with an older married man. She had a son. And then she met my dad. They married, and my dad raised both of us. And when I was nine months old, she left the family. So I grew up not knowing anything about her. I didn't know who she was or where she was or if she thought of us. I didn't know anything.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Hello, you are listening to NPE Stories. This is a podcast where NPEs can share their story. I am your host, Lily, and I found out I was an NPE through an ancestry DNA test that changed my life forever. NPE is a term that stands for not parent expected or non-paternal event. This means that one or more of our parents are not who we believe them to be. NPE Stories is a podcast where NPEs can share their story of what their original family was like, how they found out they were an NPE, and what their journey has been like since the day they found out. I need to start off with a quick thank you to my newest devotee, Ken Bayes. Really thank you to all the devotees and my Patreon supporters. You can find me at patreon.com slash NPE Stories. A lot of the hosting and server fees for this podcast are paid for by the people that donate on Patreon. Thank you so much to Lori, William, Marisol, Jay Marsh, Melanie, Dana M, Will N, Jennifer S, Amy Ann, and all the other people that donate. I appreciate you. Okay, and let's get to the episode. And this is episode 243. This will be the last episode of season seven. I will be taking a hiatus this summer and putting the NPE stories email on out of office. So you'll have to wait until August 2026 to reach the podcast. And today we are speaking with someone really special to me. This is someone I have known about through the NPE community for, well, I since the week I found out I was an NPE. We're speaking with BK Jackson, also known as Kate, if I can call you that. Hi, Kate. Hi. So nice to be here. Oh, thank you so much for doing this today.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

So glad to. As I said, we've we've been acquainted for a long time, but I've haven't really had a chance to speak. So this is nice.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

I know, and I feel like I've known bits of your story, but mostly I know you because of your um editing work, the work you do with Severance Magazine.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Yeah. Yeah, that's that's how we connected, I guess, at first.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

When did you start Severance magazine?

SPEAKER_01 2:55

I want to say it was 2019. Um it was before, pretty much before there was anything out there, and I thought people people like me, it had been a couple years for me, um, but there there was nothing to turn to except one Facebook group. I think it was the original Facebook group. And so I thought I would just try. I was a magazine editor at the time, and it seemed to make sense to try to start a magazine that might be a place where people could tell their stories and also have some community, just a place where we could combine adoptees and NPEs, donor-conceive people. And as you know, since then, obviously it's grown and grown, and people are writing books, and there are a lot of podcasts, and and I love the way all you podcasters kind of cooperate and work together, which I think is wonderful. Um, so now there are lots of resources. Um, maybe severance is not quite as necessary as I hope it was in the beginning, but um it's still out there.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

It was one of the first articles someone sent to me was from your magazine. Thank you so much for starting it. And, you know, using the skills that you have to create it. There was an article sent to me, and it was um, I'm gonna put the link down below because I may get the name wrong, but it was uh 10 things not to say to an NPE. Do you want to correct me on? I mean, you have so many articles.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

I think that's right. It was the first article I put on Severance. Um, I think it's the first thing I ever wrote about all of this, and it's probably been read more than anything on that site. Um, people mention it to me all the time. I think it's remained quite true, even as people know more about these situations, people still say all of those things. And I and I I hope we can we can um educate people about I I was talking about this the other day to someone and they said, What is the right thing to say? And I my answer was maybe instead of saying something like your father is still your father, or um you know, you're still the same person, ask how does it feel? Ask the question instead of making one of those statements, even though they're meant to be comforting, they're typically not.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Yes, so true. I have goosebumps thinking about that, but you those were all of the things I heard that first couple weeks of, you know, oh, your dad is still your dad and your family, and and I it didn't feel good. And how you captured that in that article, and now I see um a lot of other people create content kind of similar to that. Uh, but it's true, it's it's it's exactly what I needed to hear. And for you to to s explain that so well in the article, I was nodding along with it, like, yes, I don't these don't feel well when you I know people mean well, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Thank you. I think there there may well be a lot more of those that that I didn't include, but to me, those were the the top ones. And the one about your father is still your father, I tend to think is the most difficult for people because as I've learned, so many people had difficult relationships with the fathers that raised them who turned out not to be their fathers, whether it's because they knew or because there was some intuitive sense, they had tough relationships. And then there are people who just never had a good father to begin with. And so to say your father is still your father is just not helpful in any way.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

No, I agree. And so you are you're also an you're an author as well as an editor, is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Yeah. Right now I write articles. I wrote a book a long, long time ago, and I'm working on a memoir, but yeah. I was a journalist for a long time before I started writing more personal things and kind of tried to make a switch to creative nonfiction in order to be able to tell some of these family stories.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Did you write for your most recent book that I read? Um you you just wrote or you edited a a book of essays.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Yes. Um I didn't I didn't contribute an essay, I contribute an introduction, which is similar to an essay, but it more serves to sum up the anthology and let people know what they're going to be reading and and why. So it wasn't, it wasn't a essay like the other 28 contributors who wrote full, full essays.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

So what I'm referring to is uh relative strangers, and I'll actually ask you to speak more on it, but you sent me an early copy, and I oh Kate, I devoured it. I first of all I knew quite a few people in the book, but to hear them everyone, gosh, everyone wrote such great essays. So why don't you explain a little bit about relative strangers, how it came to be.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Sure. Um, it's been a while in the making. Um, the idea for it came to me several years ago, and and it I guess it grew out of um it grew out of Severance really. Severance is not a literary magazine, and the people who send me their stories are not expected to be writers, they're just people who want to share their experience. But I thought it would be interesting to create a literary um anthology, and so many of the people who are contributors are established memoirists. Um, there are a few emerging writers in there too, but most of them are established writers. So it started several years ago, and I I went through the typical way that one tries to get a book going, which was to reach out to agents. And um I found one that was quite interested. Turned out she was adopted, and then she kept telling me, you know, I need a little bit more information. I wrote a 70-page proposal, and uh she um she um she essentially she ghosted me after after months and months and months. So I decided I would start looking at small presses, and it's it's a long, long process and a lot of work. And as I did that um about a year and a half ago, I was laid off my job of 27 years, and I decided I really can't put my attention to this now. I have to put it on the back burner. A good friend of mine who is a writer told me, you know, you can't give up. And she says, I know someone who might have some advice for you. And she connected me with the person who ultimately was super enthusiastic about the book and made it happen. And that was about a year ago. So it's been a year from start to finish.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Oh wow. How long road how how did you get people? How did you like how did you choose who to include?

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Wow, that was hard. That was I know you're a mom, so you might think of it as having to choose one of your children. It was really difficult. There were um there were some that I knew from the start because I was familiar with already, but we did a call for submissions as well, and there were really a lot of good ones. And what happened was you have to try to hit all the right notes so that you're telling as many aspects of these stories as you know. There are just so many different experiences, and we had to try to find the ones that cover as many of those as possible and that seem to merge, you know, in a way that that flows for readers. So I had to turn down a lot of really wonderful essays. Um, and that was that was very hard. But I'm I'm thrilled with the way it came out. I think the essays are wonderful. They tell so many deep stories that need to be told. Uh, you've been doing this a long time, you've been telling it and listening to these stories for a long time, and I think you know better than anyone how important it is that we tell our stories and that there be places for these stories to come out in the world. I mean, I'm assuming that's your experience that that you have you have found and heard from people that telling stories changes them.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Completely. Yes, absolutely.

unknown 10:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

I read it and I loved it. I just really loved it. I I feel like we just have to mention it on here. I think people should get it. NPEs and family members of NPEs, it was. I mean, I can't even pick which there's not even just one story. There's so many that I they still kind of rattle around in my brain, even though it's been a few months since I've read it. But I loved the, you know, Eve Sturgis and uh Kara was in it, right? Car Rubinstein, Darren, Aaron Cosentino. There's such yes, I really where would people go if they wanted to get a copy of of this collection of stories?

SPEAKER_01 11:39

You can find all the information on my website um at um bkjacksonwriter.com slash book. And at that site, there's all the information about the book. There's information about, we have a lot of events coming up and all these podcasts. Um, and there's ordering, there are uh QR codes for ordering there at the podcast. And thanks for that. Thank you for being an early reader, that really meant a lot to me.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Oh, I was honored to do it. I felt very special to get to read them. And you're so sweet. You are offering a listener in the community a copy of the book. And so I have a NPE stories Facebook page and an Instagram page. And if you if a listener wants to comment below, I'm gonna call it's gonna be episode 243, Relative Strangers. If you comment on that promo link, you could win a copy of Relative Strangers. So thank you, Kate, for offering that. I'm happy to do that.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Thank you for facilitating it.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

And I was curious about your story. I I I know it's hard to talk about our own personal stories, but could I find out a little bit about your family of origin and and and how you found out you were an NPE? Would you be comfortable comfortable with that today?

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Yeah, um, what's difficult for me is not so much telling the story as that it's just a terrifically complex story, and abbreviating it is not easy. But the the shortest version I guess I could come up with is that when I was nine months old, my mother left the family. She had had a son when she was 17. She'd had an affair with an older married man. She had a son, and then she met my dad, and my dad, um, they married, and my dad raised both of us. And when I was nine months old, she left the family and left sort of no forwarding address. Um, so I grew up not knowing anything about her. I didn't know who she was or where she was or if she thought of us. I didn't know anything. And I searched um most of my life, but this was pre-internet, and there's only so much that you can do to try to find a woman who changes her name and doesn't want to be found. So I was in middle age, I guess, when I finally, purely by accident, I was looking for something entirely different in a database, and I stumbled upon um information that she had died and found an obituary. And that led me to see that she'd been survived by six children, which was something I had never imagined. I just as for some reason it just never occurred to me that she would have gone on to have more children. Um, and before, between my brother and I, my older brother and I, and those children, there was another child that she put up for adoption, told my dad was his, later found out was not his. So I got to know them. I got to know them. They were, you know, um lovely and welcoming. And we would have family reunions every year in North Carolina. They mostly live in Florida and Tennessee. And at those reunions, um, topic always came up. Of one of my sisters-in-laws would comment that she thought the six might have different fathers. And um, that struck me as strange because at that time DNA testing still was not a thing. It was not a big thing, and people didn't have these kinds of conversations much. And so, you know, I didn't think much of it. And she would say, Well, they don't look alike, but lots of siblings don't look alike. So it rolled off me, and then another reunion came around and the topic would come up again, and they'd come to visit and the topic would come up again. And finally, at some point, it just kind of lodged in my head, and I thought, hmm, you know, maybe, I don't know, could be. So when at one point when I had been looking for that um child that my mother put up for adoption, my dad asked me if it would help if he did a DNA test. And it wouldn't have at that point, but since he offered, I asked him to do one. And he was not my father. And you know how so often that's a traumatic thing for people and very disorienting, and it feels very strange to tell you this, but for me it was sort of exciting and um, I guess validating because I always felt something was not right. And I love my dad. My dad was terrific, he was wonderful, and I didn't I didn't want someone else to be my dad, but it it somehow made great sense to me to find out that he was not my dad. And it turned out that my biological father had been dead for 20 years. Um, and I obviously didn't get to meet him, but I did get to meet cousins on on his maternal and paternal side and learn a little bit about him. But after a lifetime of absence, as far as my mother goes, and not knowing who she was, the hardest part of all that for me was to sort of be in that situation again. Where here I am now, I've I've finally learned a little bit about my mother, and suddenly I have this great new mystery. That part was very difficult. About a couple years after that, the sister who'd been put up for adoption took a DNA test. I had given up expecting to ever learn anything about her because by that point she would have been about 60 years old. And I thought, if you're that age and you haven't done a DNA test yet, um, either she didn't know she was adopted, didn't care, or she had died. But it turned out she had just waited until her adoptive parents had died because she was afraid of upsetting them. And since then I've had yet another brother turn up um who is a biological child of my biological father and his mother. So all in all, I found uh nine siblings. So I've had, including my biological father, ten relative strangers.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Oh my goodness. I now I understand what you mean by how complex it is with all the it is very complex. The siblings and I have to just interject for a second and say I always think your story is so sad to me, just imagining the mom leaving a little nine-month-old baby girl. I'm and another child. That's really unbelievable to me.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Yeah, the more unbelievable part to me is the leaving my brother because I was, you know, just a baby. Um, but she was his mom for almost four years. And that part is unimaginable to me. I just don't know how someone could do that and then turn around and have another baby and do it again. The baby that she put up for adoption lived with her for at least three months, and then she put her up for adoption. So yeah, it is, I I don't understand how that could how that can happen. And of course, I've been asked my whole life, you know, what kind of woman leaves her children. I've never quite been able to answer that. Um, and it was it was very, I I don't I don't know how to put it. I guess not having had a mother and and longing for her was certainly the overarching fact of my life growing up. You know, it was something I never was not aware of. I was always aware of it at all times. I always wondered where she was. I I never stopped thinking about it.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Did your dad, your father that raised you, did did he ever suspect um you you weren't biologically his?

SPEAKER_01 19:12

I don't know. Um I changed my thoughts about that from time to time. At first I thought, no, he certainly didn't. Um And I remember sometimes he would he would look at me like across the room, he'd be kind of looking at me. You know how you do when you narrow your eyes and you look at someone like you're really, really trying to hone in on something. And I would always catch him doing it and say, you know, when it what? What do you and then he'd say something like, Oh, for a moment you look like your mother. And sometimes now I wonder if he wasn't looking for something else. Um and in his later years, when this happened, he was about 90, I think, or close to 90, and he was beginning to have some dementia. And so, of course, I never told him. But one of his nurses, he was in an assisted living, one of his nurses said something to me that that he knew, and I said, No, I think you're mistaking me with my brother, and she said, No, he knew. I don't know, I'm really not sure. My father was someone who was very big on denial. He could, he could, he would say things like, Um, you know, I knew there was another man, but I didn't know, I knew, but I didn't. And so I think that he could easily have done that um with this knowledge. He could have known and just because he took a DNA test, and you have to wonder why would he do that if he knew. But if he was so deep in denial, you know, maybe it just he he convinced himself. But on the other hand, I know that he had no issue raising another child who wasn't his um with full love and care and attention. Um so I don't know, I'll never know that.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Do you have any full siblings that you know about? No, I don't. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

I do not. Um, I you know, I I still check my dad's DNA matches, hoping maybe that one day he'll have a child who will turn up so that I could tell him I could tell that person what a great daddy was, but that hasn't happened.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

So with your discovery, what what was the most difficult part about your discovery?

SPEAKER_01 21:19

At that time, I I want to say it was 2015, and direct consumer DNA testing was still relatively new, and there weren't the number of people that there are now having tested, so it wasn't. I don't want to say it's easy now, although I think it is. I think most people now can find someone using those tests. But at the time it wasn't easy, and it took almost two years for me to figure out who my biological father was. And it turns out that um my my father who raised me was Ashkenazi Jewish, so I thought that I was half Ashkenazi Jewish. And when I first tested, that was back when the Or the results were not terribly refined, and it it said that I was Greek-Italian. And I thought, oh, well, maybe that just means that it's the Sephardic Jewish side that came out. But ultimately I discovered that my biological father was Sicilian. And that complicates uh DNA discoveries because just like in the Jewish families, because of endogamy, um, people living in small towns and uh a lot of um intermarriages. So anyway, it took that without the information, the database, it took obsessive work, obsessive work to try to figure out who my father was. And I spent all of my time when I wasn't working, kind of hunched over my computer building trees. Um, you know, I had one time I had little pieces of paper all over the dining room table, and I would move them around creating these trees, and it was very, very frustrating. And there was a lot of reaching out to people who wouldn't answer and wouldn't provide information. And that to me was the most difficult thing. The not knowing was so frustrating. And after all of that, when I finally did piece it together, I discovered that my biological father had a son, and I reached out to the son before I was a hundred percent sure. Um, but I knew he was closely related, either a cousin or a or a brother. And I reached out and I told him what I discovered and asked if he might share some information or a photo or help me figure out um what the relationship was. And I did that by email, thinking it was the most private way to do that. And I was very wrong because that afternoon, that same afternoon, I got a phone call from what appeared to be his area code, and I was suddenly very nervous. And when I picked up the phone, it was his mother. And my heart sank because I thought, oh my God, I've just I've just told this woman, possibly if she realizes what I'm saying, that her husband cheated on her. So it was a very, very difficult beginning of a phone call. And it turned out she was just lovely. Um, whether she knew exactly what I was saying or not, she was just absolutely lovely. And she told me a little bit about my biological father. And we had a bit of a correspondence for a while until she died, unfortunately. But the brother never wanted anything to do with me, and I have since been in touch with his daughter, who's lovely, but he's just got no interest in it. So he didn't supply that information. But um, I was connected to a cousin who grew up with my biological father, two cousins actually, and they sent me photographs, which was mind-blowing because I remember sitting at the computer screen scrolling down, and I scrolled down to see my face looking back at me. I'll never forget that moment. Had I seen that photo earlier, I would have known instantly, I could have saved months of research. Um, and I've met those cousins, I've met cousins on the other side, and they've told me a bit. But as I discovered when I met my other siblings and started to learn a bit about my mother, there's really only so much you can learn from other people if you don't grow up with someone. You only end up with some facts, you know, a little bit of stories. But it it makes all the difference in the world, just that little bit and seeing their faces has made a difference to me. Yeah. I got a small sense of where I came from and who I look like, and you know.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

And I I just want to connect with you on the brother not interested thing. That is something in my story as well, where I reached out to a brother initially, like the first day within within 24 hours of finding out. And he, although I can see he's read it because I did it on Ancestry, never responded. And I've heard from a family member, nope, not interested. And I just it's just still so baffling, even though I hear these stories all the time. Just so baffling. Don't want to meet your sister, you don't want to meet me. I we'll never understand it.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

We'll never understand it. Do not get it. I found it cruel, even though I know it's not necessarily cruel. Um, because I think sometimes people just don't realize they they haven't been looking their whole life for someone, they haven't had this great discovery, and maybe it just doesn't, they don't get why it's important, but it still seems cruel to me.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

Very I'm sorry that happened to you. Yeah, they and and to you, and thank you. I the I'm trying to figure out so your your brother, the one that you haven't met, that brother, because you have nine siblings, uh he he came was he older, younger than you? How does that work?

SPEAKER_01 26:32

He was a couple years older, and he was the child of my biological father and his wife in their marriage, um, and their only child. Um, so yeah, he was a couple years older.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

So was your birth father then probably still married at the point of your the time of your conception?

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Oh yeah, and he was he's married, so actually he was married until he died. And then um, and I even forget if I mentioned this, um, about two or three years ago, um, I had a new match on Ancestry, a brother, and it was a brother from my biological father, and he is 10 years younger than I am. So our father was still married then and had an affair with my brother's mother. So I always expect to find more siblings because 10 years between us, um, it seems likely to me that there will would have been more relationships and very well could be more children out there, which you I would welcome. I I've I've been, you know, I I mentioned that about rejection, which I think is so hard, but I've been so lucky. I really can't complain because I found so many receptive people. Um, but it still breaks my heart to hear about the ones who don't who don't respond. In the book, actually, there are stories. Um, there's one story of a woman who was rejected by the family who raised her when she had her discovery and wanted to know the truth. And cut they cut her off completely. And that's that's a kind of rejection I just can't fathom.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

It's so painful.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

Yeah. Yeah. I think Rich, I know identity disruption is a big issue for many of us and one of the hardest things, but and the idea of being a secret or keeping a secret. But I think that rejection, especially when it comes from a parent who doesn't acknowledge you, um, is the worst, the most difficult thing.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Would you agree? Do you think that's Oh yeah, absolutely absolutely. I and you hear that in the adoptee community as well, when they reach out to a biological parent and the rejection just so so painful. I I was rejected from my um I guess he would be my bi biological father. I mean, I guess I had it and two emails and two awkward phone calls, but yeah, he doesn't want to get to know me and it is so hard. Yeah, that's heartbreaking. Yeah, that's heartbreaking. So you're you you never got the chance to meet your biological father, and how amazing of his wife to speak with you.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Yeah, she really was. She was she would have been maybe 86 years old or something. And sh I really think she enjoyed it. We corresponded for several months at least, and she seemed to really enjoy it. Like I would just ask, I didn't want to keep asking her about her husband because I just, you know, I didn't want to open a wound there, or I wanted to keep her thinking maybe he was an uncle or something. And um, so I just asked very general things. I asked about her upbringing, and she really seemed to enjoy, enjoy that. She said, you know, nobody asks about the past, they people don't want to know. And um then it was uh I knew she had a birthday coming up, and it was near Mother's Day, and I didn't hear from her for quite some time, and I just got a bad feeling. And so I Googled and found an obituary. So that was sad because I was enjoying, apart from, you know, wanting to know more, I was just enjoying that relationship, and and she was so kind and generous.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

And were you able to get have you gotten your health family medical history, your health history? Oh, well, interesting.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Um, that was another thing that I had asked when I reached out to that brother. I tried to explain how important that was, and that also didn't seem to interest him. But um, what I did do was I managed to get a copy of an autopsy report from my biological father. And it was not good. Um, I found out that he had really terrible heart disease, and in fact, he died in a car accident, um, and apparently because he had a heart attack. And in the time since then, the um adopted sister that I've connected with, um, she actually died of a heart attack. And then one of my other sisters in recent years has had several heart attacks. So I thought maybe I need to um get checked out. So I've since gone to a cardiologist and I'm I'm fine, but it was, I think it was really an important thing to do, and it just raises the um, you know, the stakes are high for people like us who don't have that information. And I think these things show how important, I mean, they can be critically life-saving information that we don't have access to.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

And I know donor-conceive people are, you know, obviously trying to fight for that and adoptees to get their original birth certificates and and get some of their medical information. But there are so many stories about people who who find out that they have a heritable condition and if they had known much earlier, could have had preventive care.

SPEAKER_00 31:47

Yeah, exactly. Now you now that you have a cardiologist, you know to have you've gotten checked out, but that's the sort of relationship you need and to get that check, especially once you find out about what's what's in your medical history.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

Exactly. And I honestly would would not have thought to do that because growing up with the dad who raised me, his whole family was full of cancer. Everyone, his his siblings died young of cancer, his father, his mother, everyone had cancers. That's what I grew up worrying about, and you know, thinking I needed to, you know, be concerned about preventive care and heart disease was not on my radar at all. So that that was quite a shift. And I I recently saw a statistic that it said something like I think I believe it was 64% of people who do a DNA DNA test discover that their medical information is not what they thought it to be. So it's really significant numbers of people who need that information. And I don't know how we go about turning the tide there, but I think it's very important.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

And I'm curious if you would share how you got the autopsy report.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

Well, let's see, how did I do that? I remembered that when I was trying to learn more about my mother, um, again, I knew nothing. I knew like the barest bio biological facts about her growing up. I knew that her mother had mental illness, she her mother had paranoid schizophrenia, and I knew that she had been in institutions, and I knew that her father was an alcoholic, and that's about all I knew about my mother. So I did tons of research. I looked everywhere for anything I could find about her. And one of the things I did was to write to the medical examiners for her parents' records. And while I didn't get autopsy reports for those, I did get information. So I tried the same thing when I discovered my father. And I wrote to the what is it, the county medical office, I believe, county coroner's office. And um, I just filled out a form and they sent it. Um they didn't send everything, but they sent the whole report, and it was it was fairly detailed. Um, and I'm not sure, I think other people have tried that and not had the same luck. I was lucky as well when when I tried to find information about my grandmother, I wrote to one of the institutions I knew. Actually, I showed up the first time um at one of the institutions and I put in a request for medical records, not expecting. I mean, that was 50 years ago, I think, that she was there. Figured I was never going to get anything. And I first received about an eight-page document with quite a lot of information. And the person who copied it copied it so that it was a little cockeyed and that the margins were cut off. So I wrote back and I said if if they could possibly redo it and if there was any other information. And sometime later I got an 80-page document filled with information. So much of what I know has come from that. So sometimes you just have to keep trying, even when you think those records aren't there.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

Yeah, just keep trying and you might get lucky, and a cuck a clerk at a county might be helpful and print stuff off for you.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

Yep, you find the person who's, you know, thoughtful and and sometimes they'll go the extra distance. Um, but I know a lot of people stop saying no, there's no way there's going to be that. But there can be, and and it's astounding how much information some of these records have.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

Kate, you have gotten all this information. Clearly, you're you're not only a skilled writer and editor, you I love how you've used your brain to figure out your own story and to help others with their storytelling. D do you help people with their storytelling with um the magazine? Do you help people write their story?

SPEAKER_01 35:27

Not really. Um, I do that kind of professionally, but I don't do it with the magazine. Um, I try not to tinker too much with what people send because, as again, as I said, it's not a literary magazine, and I think people aren't looking at it in a way to sort of judge it as literature, but just to let people tell their stories. I do some mild editing, and when people are stuck, I help them if I can. But otherwise, I just let them tell their stories. I think sometimes people are afraid to do that because they are afraid of being judged, and they'll say, you know, I've had people say, I'm not a writer, but I'd like to share my story. And I think it's so important to get past that critical mind because there is no judgment here. I don't think anybody who reads Severance approaches those stories with any kind of judgment about the quality of writing. They just want to get at the emotion of what's being said. And in my experience, and I'm willing to bet it's the same for you in all these stories that you've received, um, the receiving of the stories is important too, because we carry people's stories. And that it's a it's as important, I think, to hear stories and be witness to stories as it is to tell them. And I think that storytelling is healing. Um, I believe that it helps us make sense of the experiences in our life. So I'm I'm I'm a big champion for storytelling. And I would encourage people if they don't want to tell their stories in a public way, keep a journal. The act of writing, just the act of writing, can change your brain, can rewire your brain, and can really help you process hard things and joyful things too.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

Do you write every day?

SPEAKER_01 37:10

No, I do not. Um, I do not. And not to get into the weeds too much, but I have ADHD, which is something I also write about. I have a sub stack about ADHD. And we can't follow the sort of normal rules of things, and people love to tell writers that you have to write every day. And it doesn't work um for someone, someone whose brain is wired like mine. Um, there's too much distraction, and you you have to sort of use the energy when you have it and let go of it when you don't. Um, which honestly I think is a a good way for anybody to approach writing instead of making it a chore and feeling like they have to put down so many words in a day, just write when it moves you. Um unless you're trying to be a professional writer, then you really do have to develop that muscle and try to try to write as often as you can and read as often as you can.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

Well, that's what I needed to hear uh because I do not want to be a professional writer. And I don't want that to be a chore where I write every day, but every so often I just exactly as you described it, I get that feeling to journal. So I I liked hearing that from you. Do it when it moves you. Yeah. And do you do you find it helpful? I do. The the only thing is, and this might be more a writing question, but is there a difference between typing and printing? Because I'm just so fast at typing. I'm like, can I journal just by typing in the notes app?

SPEAKER_01 38:40

Well, that's funny you say that. I have never ever been able to write. This again goes back to the ADHD. I can't read my own handwriting. So if I were to, and every everyone, not everyone, so many writers will say, you need to do your first draft handwritten. Um, and they talk about there being some kind of connection between your hand and your brain. Um, it does not work for me at all because for one thing, by the time I I'm writing, my brain is 10 steps ahead and I would miss. So I am on the keyboard and I write, I type very fast, and I can keep up with my brain. So everyone will tell you a different thing. I think some people, it really is helpful for them to handwrite, and for people like me, that would never happen.

SPEAKER_00 39:27

I'm so glad I heard that from you because good, I want to continue to just type it out when I feel like it.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

Yeah, I think I think it it helps you capture your thoughts um quickly enough, um, unless you're the type of writer who really um struggles, not struggles, um labors with every word to make it perfect, which is not a kind of writing I enjoyed doing. I like to get it all out there and then worry about it later, come back and and revise if it's something for publication. But um, and if it's not, then it doesn't need to be revised. But yeah, I just typed like the wind.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

And how is your memoir going? I think you mentioned that earlier, right?

SPEAKER_01 40:05

Yeah, I set it aside for a long time. I I I sent it out actually to to a developmental editor much too soon. I should have known better about that, an early, early messy draft. And um then I put it away. Uh that was during COVID. And only recently, um, in about the last year, I've started looking at it again. And when I began the anthology, I haven't been able to do both. I just needed to focus on that. So now um, I'm hoping to get back to it. It's it's hard writing a memoir.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

I can't even imagine. It sounds like I've only sat in on the just the briefest of workshops for them. And I I'm like, I don't think I can take this project on. This is a lot.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

It's hard. There's so many choices involved. And are you making the right choice and you find the right structure? And you know, all I think everyone who writes a memoir is like, is anyone interested in this? Does anybody care? But you just have to push through it. That's what I'm trying to do. I have a a friend and we've created a writing group of two because I find that that writing groups that are larger are just too confusing when you have too much input. And so she and I um we work at a distance and we zoom every couple weeks. And I think it's really good if you are trying to write a memoir, to have someone that keeps you accountable, that helps you keep going. And not not to criticize, not to critique, um, because I don't think that's terribly helpful when you're when you're just trying to get your story out, but just just to keep you going, to keep the motivation there. So I would encourage anybody who's trying to write, um, whether it's essays or memoir, to get a buddy.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

What a great idea. And again, at this point, I just really want to encourage people to take a look at relative strangers, read relative strangers, check out Severance magazine. Kate, where should people go if they want to learn more about what's going on in your world?

SPEAKER_01 42:06

I would I would ask them to go to my website, um, bkjacksonwriter.com slash book, and on that page there's a tab for events. Um, I've been trying to um involve the contributors in doing podcasts like this. We have quite a few coming up, and we are doing a little book tour. Um, different people will be appearing in different cities. We're doing an event in New York on July 9th. There will be one in Portland, Oregon, later on in August, one in um near the Chicago area, one in Miami. So if any people live in those areas, they might want to check in to the events page. We would love to see people come out to the bookstores and check out the podcasts.

SPEAKER_00 42:49

Well, thank you, Kate, so much for all the work. I've really just admired you, passed around your articles for for years, and admire all the work you do for us. Um, thank you for coming on, and I'm so glad I got to hear more about your story today.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

Thank you, and thank you for asking me. And I would say all the same back to you because I've enjoyed what you do for a very, very long time now.

SPEAKER_00 43:14

These stories are here for us to identify with. If you are an NPE and would like to share your story, email npestories at gmail.com. You do not have to give any identifying information. If you are an NPE and would like to share your story, I'd like to hear from you. Subscribe to this podcast to hear more. Come hill with us.