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Hello Also-Known-As Community!
We’re thrilled to welcome you back as we step into a truly special milestone: the 30th year of Also-Known-As. 🎉
This term is all about honoring our history, uplifting our community, and celebrating three decades of connection, advocacy, and storytelling. And the best part? Registration for our 30th Anniversary Celebration is open!
👉 Register here today to join us for this unforgettable moment. Prices will go up in the New Year, so secure your spot now.
In late August the board wrapped up our annual retreat, and we left feeling energized and deeply committed to the year ahead. You can look forward to:
We can’t wait to kick things off with you at our September Happy Hour and to carry this energy into an incredible anniversary year!
In sincerest partnership,
2025–2026 Board of Directors
Lindsay Geier (President), Sara Crayne-Dedrick (Vice President), Mark Fermi (Treasurer), Joseph Pinney (Secretary), Andrew McFarland (Director of Scholarship), Adam Goodman (Director of Mentorship), Katie Kwon O'Donnell, Emily Flynn, Emma Barr, Ryan Dritz, and Emily Brillon
Join us at Clinton Hall 36 for our first event of the season! Expect fun games, great company, and delicious food and drinks, hosted by our Advisory Board. Help kick off our 30th year by donating $30 or more, and be entered into a raffle for exciting prizes!
When: Thursday, Sept. 18 (6-8 pm)
Where: Clinton Hall 36, 16 W 36th St
Who: All are welcome, just show up!
Cost: Pay your own way
Bring a song, a story, and a blanket! Settle in on blankets and pillows for a gentle, music-centered gathering. We’ll listen to songs, share tracks that have helped us heal, and talk about how music touches adoption experiences—identity, belonging, search, joy, grief, and everything in between. Sharing is always optional; quiet listening and free-flowing dancing is welcome! Leave with new songs, new language, and a little more ease in your chest.
When: Thursday, Sept. 25 (7-9 pm)
Details: Stay tuned for updates!
What do the words “macho” and “masculinity” mean to you? This event will explore the lived experiences of adopted individuals who identify as men, and is intended as a safe space in which to explore issues surrounding masculinity and adoption. Join Ryan Dritz, LCSW, for this inaugural session.
When: Tuesday, Sept. 30 (6-8 pm)
Where: 151 W 30th St, 3rd fl, NYC
Who: Adoptees only, please
RSVP: Required
Cost: $10-15 donation request
This past May, Also-Known-As advisory board member Heather Schultz Gittens delivered a TEDxCUNY Talk in which she provided a five-step framework for navigating grief in a healthy way—through communication with the mind and body based on her four decades of lived experience as a Korean adoptee, motherless daughter, and mom of a toddler. Watch the talk here.
For those in the San Francisco Bay Area: On Saturday, October 4, Linden Tree Books will host an inspiring afternoon of poetry with Korean adoptee Lee Herrick, California’s 10th Poet Laureate and the first Asian American to hold the role. Herrick, recently reappointed for a second term, will share poems that celebrate identity, community, and hope at a family-friendly event. Follow Linden Tree on Instagram or Facebook and look out for an RSVP page coming soon.