257 Sarah Myer

Transcript

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Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/257

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Haley Radke: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.

You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. We are so excited to introduce you to Sarah Meyer, author of the forthcoming graphic memoir, monstrous. Today, Sarah and I talk about their love of comics, anime, and cosplay, and how it led them to explore their own identity as a Korean adoptee and comic artist.

We also talk about anger and violence and how it can be incredibly scary when it's erupting out of ourselves. Before we get started, I wanted to personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community today over on adopteeson.com/community, which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world.

We wrap up with some recommended resources and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, adopteeson.com. Let's listen in. I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, on Sarah Meyer. Welcome Sarah.

Sarah Myer: Thank you for having me.

Haley Radke: I am really excited to talk with you today. I'd love it if you would start by sharing some of your story with us.

Sarah Myer: I was born in 1986 in, according to the papers anyway, Seoul, South Korea, and I was adopted three, or I arrived in the United States three months after I was born, so in August of 1986. And my parents had already adopted my older sister who was also born in South Korea. And she's about, I think we're like 18 months apart in age, so she's not that much older than me.

I grew up in a really rural part of Northern Baltimore County, Maryland, where there wasn't a lot of ethnic and racial diversity. Oh, and on a farm, a 10 acre farm at that, cuz my dad's hobby was farming on the side, but he actually had a government office job in the county seat, Towson. So growing up I was around our beef cows and for a short period of time we had chickens. We had a duck at one point.

Haley Radke: Very rural growing up.

Sarah Myer: For sure. And then I studied sequential art, which is a fancy word for comics which was always like my, my lifelong ambition was to be an artist because of my love of cartoons and animation and anime. And currently I'm working in the comics industry, so I was able to pursue that dream.

Haley Radke: Amazing. You mentioned growing up in Maryland and that it's pretty white there, I'm assuming.

Sarah Myer: Right in the area that I grew up in. Yeah.

Haley Radke: And so your sister was also adopted from South Korea and, but you were not biologically related.

Sarah Myer: That's right.

Haley Radke: So was she the only other Korean that you knew growing up?

Sarah Myer: No, actually we, so we did, we do and did have some friends who were also Korean adoptees. But there, I would say that my experiences and my interpretation of the area differs vastly, I would say, from my sisters as well. While I consider those other adoptees from the area to be friends and good friends, we don't necessarily see eye to eye when it comes to perhaps my more pessimistic and sort of negative view of some of the events from my childhood.

And everybody's experience was a little bit different in regards to that. Yeah.

Haley Radke: So I'm guessing you didn't talk much about adoption growing up.

Sarah Myer: I tried to talk about it a little bit more with my sister than I think she liked. And then occasionally I think I've sort of over the years asked those friends who were also adoptees, hey did you deal with, racism?

And sometimes they would sort of, express that they had similar experiences to mine. But I think that I was often- and this is not their fault by any means, this is just my personal interpretation of it- I often was left feeling a little bit like, oh, I guess I'm overreacting, or I guess I'm like too sensitive about it, or I seem like I'm angry angrier about those experiences than, they are.

And it sort of, I would often feel like- I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill, so to speak, and maybe I oughta just drop that with them. So I actually ended up talking a lot more about my personal frustrations when I lived there with my mom and my dad. In many ways, like my mom and my dad were more of like my close social circle when I was a teenager, which is a little bit different, I think, from what many parents are expecting a teenager to be like. I often would, stay home and wanna talk with mom or dad.

Haley Radke: Okay. You are releasing this. Stunning graphic memoir called Monstrous. It's coming out very shortly, and you chronicle multiple racist events that happened to you throughout childhood like that with, 2023 eyes, it's obvious, like not microaggressions, like macro, like full on aggression.

Sarah Myer: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Situations. I don't know. I've talked with lots of transracial adoptees that, did experience that growing up and it sounds like you were sort of trying to talk to it with your peers and they were not really - oh, let's just ignore it or put it to the side. I imagine they were experiencing some of the same things you were.

Sarah Myer: Right? I, yeah. And you can see in throughout the book that, now with the benefit of hindsight, I'm able to sort of express how much emotional and mental health turmoil that really- all those experiences with racism put me through. And I guess if I had to theorize as to why they were a little bit more tight-lipped about it. I think to some degree there may have been some component of like subconscious embarrassment where it's like distancing themselves from me. Cuz it, I was also like, just as a teenager, I was like very nerdy and very like odd maybe compared to like their efforts to maybe sort of blend in a little bit more.

And then also I think that. Whenever there's something really uncomfortable going on where you don't have or feel like you have any control over the world around you, which I'm sure as I felt they likely felt to some degree as well. I think that sometimes people like to try they develop like a coping mechanism of com compartmentalizing. So I feel like some of that may have been like pushed way down. I know it's not my place at all to. Try to psychoanalyze what was going on with them. But I'm just saying I can understand why they maybe were thinking, I'm not ready to, nor will I ever be ready to discuss this with you, Sarah. So I totally understand like why they didn't feel comfortable talking about that as much as I did, or they wouldn't react in such a open way about it in school.

Haley Radke: It's something I learned, I think maybe only a year or two ago. About internalized racism. And so I imagine, yeah, if we're like psychoanalyzing from far away, some of it's that too. Are you comfortable sharing a little bit more about your experience with that and what that was like growing up and how that affected you emotionally?

Because it sounds like you were more aware of those things are willing to actually look at it even at the time?

Sarah Myer: I think so for, in some ways, for me, I think that it on the one hand, it- I guess if I'm gonna be more like pessimistic about it objectively- I do feel to some degree that some of those ins insecurities about my physical appearance, like my facial or features, that, that kind of did sort of, I feel a bit robbed of the average teenager experience. I didn't really feel necessarily like anybody in my school would want to date me. So I was kinda like afraid to even really I think, express any form of adolescent, like teenage, sexuality that other teenagers at the time were expressing.

But I do think being optimistic about it, it did also, force me to confront a lot of internal identity issues that any teenager would be facing or any child, coming of age would be facing maybe a little bit earlier because I had such, I had to deal with those negative emotions, so early and, that could have gone very wrong.

I think for me, because I do see and when I was writing and drawing this book, I could see in hindsight a few parts of my life where I think- it's probably a good thing I was a little bit more nerdy than I was because I easily could have become one of those kids who really like rebels and sort of, gets into substance abuse or something to cope with their emotions.

And I think to some degree, my nerdy side is what helped me stay away from that. But it did make me feel simultaneously- and I've said this to my parents, in hindsight, sometimes I think I was almost like still a five year old when I was 16 and yet I also felt like I was 96 years old. Cuz I was like so freaking like weary sometimes and so cynical because of some of the racist encounters I would have.

I sort of would, I think I subconsciously got used to thinking if I'm walking into a room, I have to be emotionally prepared that people are maybe not going to like me or, not like what they see or something, or say something that's upsetting. So I think I was like really under a lot of stress that made me feel a lot older than I really was.

But also my interest in like cartoons and animation and anime and cosplaying was sort of something that also made me feel like, what's. What's going on with all my peers, they wanna drive but they wanna hang out what? You know what I mean? Like I feel like I still maintain this weird like childlike side and I still do to some degree.

Haley Radke: That's amazing. I have a son that's very artistic and is always drawing and of course, at this time, he's only eight. He can draw better than all of us put together. Right. Because he spent so many hours doing that. And we talk on the show so much about writing is healing and different ways you can use art and creativity to get those feelings out. So it sounds like you were doing that.

Sarah Myer: Oh yeah. I think I think the cosplay was an extension of that. It was like when you draw or when you write you're you're either, expressing your interpretation of how the world, how you see the world, or you might be expressing an idealized version of, Hey, here's how I wish the world around me was, and you might be escaping into that a little better.

Or using that as a vision board, I guess, for like how things could be, how good things could be. And I think cosplay was sort of my way of taking that, like artistic expression and wishes so to speak, for how I wish the world could be out into my reality.

Haley Radke: For the older folks can you just say what cosplay is, just in case people haven't heard of that?

Sarah Myer: So cosplay I guess the general definition would be making or cobbling together a costume that, dressing up and wearing it and dressing up like an anime character that's traditionally what it was, like a Japanese animation character like Sailor Moon or Goku from Dragon Ball Z. But it's now been used as a label just to refer to the act of wearing a costume to look like a fictional character. Now people will say, oh, It's my Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock Holmes cosplay. So now it's used, it's kinda used to refer to any act of dressing up as a fictional character from a variety of media sources.

Haley Radke: And so you were doing that as a teenager?

Sarah Myer: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Uhhuh. And were you doing that at. Events like where it would be traditional for cosplay comic-Con, that kind of thing or other.

Sarah Myer: So I kinda I started doing that before I went to my first anime convention, which was in, which was Otakon 1999 technically was my first anime convention that I attended, but I cosplayed to Otakon 2000, which in the book I've sort of amalgamated those two events to make it seem as though Otakon for the book's narrative purposes. I made it seem as though Otakon 2000 was my first anime convention and also the first cosplay at an anime convention.

But, I was always excited about Halloween at school cuz I was thinking, oh, I can wear my Ash Ketchum costume and not get in trouble, in middle school. But like I, I would wear my Shinji Ikari, the main character from Neon Genesis, Evangelian and School Uniform and Ava like, earpieces in high school almost every day. I had five pairs of black slacks, five white shirts, like blue t-shirts. And I had made those little, they look like sort of these high-tech looking white cat ear things that I would wear around school.

So yeah, I cosplayed whenever I could, felt I could get away with it at school.

Haley Radke: That is interesting to me, like now we're looking back. Right. And your book really spans, your whole childhood, through adolescence, young adulthood, sort of as the endpoint of that, the story there. But looking back and looking at, adoptee sorts of issues. It's interesting, right, to observe yourself as Oh, I was dressing up as a character every day.

Sarah Myer: Yeah. Or almost every day, whenever I could sort of get away with that, but yeah. Yeah. I think that was a bit of an emotional shield of some sort. Also I think it was my way of expressing my frustration with the high school that I went to. Where football was definitely valued by the administration more so than our theater department. Or the art department for that matter. So I kinda, at that point in my life, I had thought, you know what people are gonna think I'm really, maybe think I'm weird no matter what I do, or I'm gonna be an outsider in this community no matter what.

Whether I'm wearing an Abercrombie and Fitch shirt or like dressed as Ash Ketchum from Pokemon, may as well just do what I want. And I really, I haven't looked back from that though. I guess I recognize where I could have reigned it in a few times, I think. But I really, in the long term, I'm not at all sorry for having done that.

Haley Radke: And like here I'm gonna say two different things. Love what you love. I love that you knew you love these things from childhood and they've brought you so much joy and now you've moved your way all through to a career in this. And then the other thing is it's safer to be attacked or bullied or made fun of for, because I'm in cosplay versus my deep down identity. Asian person raised by a white family. Nobody looks like me here except my sister, and like it's very complex and as a kid growing up I wasn't.

I know I had lots of issues. I've had suicidal ideation since I was like 12 years old. I had depression. I had all kinds of things I was working through as an adopted person. Confused. Like, why am I here? And like you're processing all those things. And so to give so much grace to our younger selves, like we're just like doing the best we can with what we have in this weird situation. Right.

Sarah Myer: Right. Yeah.

Haley Radke: Okay. I'm curious if you're willing to talk about some of the things you show in the book.

Sarah Myer: Sure.

Haley Radke: You portray some incidents where somebody is, poking you in some way, usually racist, calling you something or something like that, and you get this like volcanic eruption of anger. And there's like this dark monster that you show sometimes. I, like I said before, my, my son is eight and he loves drawing and I'm lucky that I got an advanced copy.

And so I was able to, I showed him, I'm like, oh my gosh, look at this artist. Look at her drawing. I said, some of the books scary, so I'm just gonna flip through a couple things. And I showed him, in particular, the one where you have this this big moment of revelation. So I think you know the page, it's like, the monster is like huge. And anyway.

Sarah Myer: Right.

Haley Radke: He is oh my gosh. Anyway, you have a fan for life in him too oh, can you talk a little bit about that? About having this anger and I don't think it's something we talk about that much in the way that you share in the book.

Sarah Myer: Honestly, I don't know if it's, scientists are always debating, aren't they, about nature versus nurture.

Are there, I feel like every other week there's some article saying, are we born angry? Are some people prone more to anger than others? And I just, for as long as I can remember, I always had a short sometimes long, very volatile fuse when it does go off.

But I've always had an anger about me. I think that even when I'm happily drawing something, like even nowadays, I sort of think is this like energy that I feel and the drive that I feel when I'm drawing or really hyper focusing on a project, is that technically the anger just being rerouted. You know what I mean?

I've always felt very high energy. I've always felt almost like I, I don't mean to say this in the clinical way, but I've almost always had like a manic energy about me. Ever since I was a kid where I would flip between really gleefully happy and hyperactive to like furious like in a second. But I can flip right back.

So I don't know if I maybe was just, maybe in my DNA or my genetics, there's a little bit of a hot tempered sort of streak in my biological family. I don't know. But yeah, I always, I definitely think that the environment I grew up in didn't help. And I do think though, that my sister the difference between her and I, not being genetically related of course might point to a little bit of possibly a genetic thing, and the anger, like the temperament that I maybe was born with.

Definitely my anger was a lot more on display than hers. And I think I, at one point in the book I addressed how it was a weird, almost like, I don't wanna say miracle, obviously, but you know what I mean. It was almost like a weird, like lucky thing that I think the stereotype, the racial stereotype of the meek and mild Asian is actually what kind of kept me from being considered and labeled by administrative staff members at school more of a problem child, you know what I mean?

So that's a really weird, messed up double-edged sword thing, because I feel like my anger, because they just saw me as like this small, like Asian kid, I feel in some ways, like they look the other way when I would do things that maybe might have gotten other kids suspended or even expelled.

And I'm definitely like, those were some of the hardest pages to draw was like, not even the monster character, not even the quote unquote the flat face character who's a monster. It was actually the pages where I showed just Sarah, just hitting somebody or doing something that brought up a lot of shame in me, just like now as an adult drawing it.

Yeah, and I still, I think. Feel a lot of anger about those past incidents. But I noticed that nowadays, it's few and far between now. But if I do encounter somebody who's being racist or ignorant or saying something that just might set me off, like I definitely now am more a little bit more focused on educating them.

So I'll still like, give them a piece of my mind, but it's nowhere near that kind of explosion that I had when I was a kid.

Haley Radke: I think it's so vulnerable for how you shared those incidents in the book especially. I think it will give people permission to talk more about those things, and I can't imagine like it's oh my gosh, I see where it was coming from my child's self.

And not knowing how to channel this appropriately and safely. And yet I still wanna tell the truth and say I, hit them or whatever the case may be.

Sarah Myer: Right.

Haley Radke: So I hope that you've been able to process some of that and have, it's like a forgiveness for your younger self, right? I don't know. It's so hard.

Sarah Myer: Yeah, I mean I, and there was a temptation in some cases to try and reach out to, some of the individuals upon which these fictionalized versions of the characters were based on the character's name is Calvin. But I'm like, no, that ship sailed a long time ago.

You know what I mean? I'm not. I try not to chase people, quote unquote, anymore. You know what I mean? I try not to look for that validation from people. But yeah, I mean it definitely, it's hard cuz like you were, like you've mentioned a few times, our child self versus who we are today.

It's like we have these two different minds observing things and remembering things and interpreting things. So yeah, my child self would definitely wanna say to, to Calvin, Hey. Just so you know. I still remember that. Just so you know. That really messed me up. That really upset me. But, how do you feel about this Calvin?

But to be honest I don't, I feel like wherever that individual might be I really don't think he would care. Even if he saw this thing plastered in Times Square or something. I don't think he'd care.

Haley Radke: And like just to also give little Sarah a pass too, it like they were doing some stuff where you don't wanna say anyone deserves violence.

Sarah Myer: Right.

Haley Radke: But also bad behavior all around.

Sarah Myer: Yeah. I, and I have to admit, like my adult side, I guess looking back, I tried to think too, what kind of indoctrination occurred in that character, Calvin's home, to make him say in middle school some of those things that he says, which reference World War II and reference comfort women and other atrocities of war in regards to my, Sarah's, ethnicity like and racial background.

What kind of indoctrination was he going through at that time too, where he clearly over, I guess a summer, had been, probably told by some authority figure in his private life, you're not to enjoy Pokemon anymore. You can't enjoy Japanese animation. So he was probably going through something that I can't hope to understand even now.

Haley Radke: Yeah. We're all bringing different things to the table. You, there's this, a quote from the book. You said, my ferocity drove people away. Even the ones I liked.

Sarah Myer: Yeah. Yeah. I think that, first of all, I think my parents were sometimes a little bit a at a loss as to like how to handle my anger. And then I think for sure, like in that instance it was the Power Ranger's friend. I think that she, that friend, like she was in the book. I used an amalgamation of a few childhood, like young, early childhood friends that I had that I think, yeah, they were like really confused by, or baffled by like the anger that I would show even if it wasn't directed at them because, and again, with the benefit of hindsight, that really was, I'm sure, shocking to other little kids.

Especially, and to contextualize it, this was the early nineties back when toys and TV shows for kids were still very gender binary. This is blue and red. It's for boys. This is pink. It's the Barbie car for girls. So I, I do think to some degree there was a confusion of Sarah's acting like one of the boys and eww boys, we don't like that.

But also I think, yeah it was frightening for my classmates to see me just suddenly go off on that one kid in the like recess incident.

Haley Radke: Can you tell us about choosing the title Monstrous.

Sarah Myer: My editors, Robin and Michael and I went through a lot of different titles and it was actually a late, later arrival on Monstrous, and I think, I wanna say it, it wasn't my suggestion. I don't think. I think it was Robin or Michael's, and we liked that idea because monstrous indicates something that's looming, something that's large, but also something that is scary and something that is threatening. And I guess monstrous sort of is meant to describe all of those feelings, like bottled up, you know what I mean?

They're always there, like looming behind you. And if you don't, if you don't face your own, demons, so to speak, your own monsters, if you don't fight your own monsters, you might become the monster itself. Like it might consume you.

I also think that it works for childhood sarah's kind of Freudian fear of being inside a body, like devoured. Like that was always a fear that I had as a kid. Like scenarios like that, if it would show up on TV or in cartoons, would frighten me. And I even still to this day, I don't watch like Pinocchio because of Monstero the Whale like still scares me.

Haley Radke: Oh.

Sarah Myer: And Fantastic Voyage is off the table. I can never watch that movie, but yeah, I think Monstrous just works on like several levels for what kinds of things in my story are monstrous or could become consumed by the monster.

Haley Radke: In later part of the book, this is another quote he says, what he said opened up a wound i'd hidden for years. And some deeply braided anger at my birth. Parents came out that day. Can you talk about how you've looked at your story and thought about your, genetic past now, or your ancestors, your genetic ancestors as an adult in the last, number of years since you've written the book and processed some of the adoption things.

Sarah Myer: Shortly before my editor, Robin, approached me to do this book, I had completed my graduate thesis, my MFA thesis. Which allowed me to research transracial adoptee issues. And it was about how comics and graphic novels as an art form can be used to express or create one's own self-identity through drawing basically self-portrait over and over again through the telling of the story.

For example, Gene Luen Yang's, American Born Chinese, addresses issues with internalized racism and how that character comes to accept all aspects of who he is, the American side and the Chinese side. And during that time that I was researching and writing my thesis paper, I learned a lot of things about transracial adoption in the United States and in regards to records being potentially falsified in some instances for adoptees from overseas. And issues that Korean adoptees in particular have had to come up against in terms of trying to seek out the birth parents.

So I haven't made any contact with my birth parents. I have been able to connect with a biological half sibling, and that's been a really, really fulfilling relationship, but we only know each other through Facebook. We've talked through video chat a few times, and hopefully in 2023 we'll be able to meet. She's out on the West coast.

But I definitely, I still, there's still a lot of mystery surrounding my birth parents because even that discovery of a biological half sibling, between the two of us, we still haven't necessarily been able to identify a biological parent. The shared biological parent between us. That's still like something that is, it feels very far off and very distant to me. But with the advent of the internet and DNA testing and always thinking, huh, I haven't checked on my like DNA family tree thing in a while. This could be the day that I check it and suddenly I see, oh, direct biological match for father or mother.

So it's it's scary how like technology's really helped with that search yet it also makes it very sudden. Sometimes you might not be ready for it. And I really lucked out in regards to my half sibling. She's older than me and she's been super nice and it's been really nice to just like talk, and just get to know each other as friends.

But yeah, I, with the book, I was able to, and I said this to my editors, I really wanted to address how Sarah's, like adolescent Sarah's started to feel angry towards the biological parents, in part, due to how Sarah would see things happening around her. Like the idea of whenever Sarah would see like her classmates being horny teenagers, like Sarah would sort of resent that in a way because- and again, I'm editorializing what teenage Sarah might have been thinking, but perhaps teenage Sarah was looking at it and thinking, oh, irresponsible and hypersexual maybe like my biological parents were.

Whereas when Sarah was younger, when I was younger, I sort of tried to think of it at times, if it ever came up as a fairytale. Like that whole, maybe I'm like a long lost princess or like heir to the throne of some mysterious civilization far away.

And of course, over time that definitely changed. And I don't even, as I show my dad when we're fishing, telling me he had read that they were fishermen, fisher folk, in the papers. But. I don't, I take that with a heavy grain of salt because I believe that he told me what he knew to be true from the papers. But my research since then, circa about 2016, has given me enough anecdotes from other adoptees from South Korea to make me think that could have just been fabricated. They could have just slapped that on there.

And the more Korean adoptees that I meet online, the more I sometimes find myself wondering, am I gonna like just run into somebody who's got the exact same birth name as me, the exact same birth date, the exact same information all the way down the line, and find out that this is some kind of, they cycle through, like I'm being very cynical and very pessimistic, and I'm sorry, this is probably not happy listening.

Haley Radke: But realistic.

Sarah Myer: Yeah. I'm just always, my, my most cynical side is thinking, okay, how many times did they use that birth name? On a forum, did they slap that in there for one, every, one out of every like 100 or one out of every 10,000 and just assume and hope that we would never meet each other cuz it was 1986. It's only a matter of time, I think until I, I either find out definitively, there's no way to trace my biological parents or until suddenly just one day I check that email and they're there. I'm not, I'm still on the fence about how aggressively I wanna pursue that cuz I still think that I would have some anger.

I don't think I would erupt at them or anything, but I definitely, I don't know if I would feel uncomfortable with trying to reconnect with my biological parents if I had definitive proof that it was them.

Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing that. I know folks are all along the spectrum of their interest in finding info out if they can, and sometimes you just, you can't ever know, and some of us are fortunate to have more info than others and yeah, it's a big spectrum.

Before we do recommended resources, is there anything I didn't ask you about that you wanna make sure you share or anything else you wanna say to adoptees?

First of all, where can we read your thesis and also especially in regards to comics and drawing and all of those things that have helped you, that you wanna maybe wanna share.

Sarah Myer: The thesis should be on Savannah College of Art and Designs, graduate Thesis archives. It's, it would be like a longer link.

Haley Radke: So we can get it. Okay.

Sarah Myer: I believe you can, yeah, I can email you that link.

Haley Radke: Okay. Let's link it. Awesome.

Sarah Myer: And fair warning, it's long. You might have noticed I'm a verbose person and my thesis is kinda long too. So like.

Haley Radke: We have academics on and we talk about their research papers. We're good. We can read anything.

Sarah Myer: And in regards to, I guess, I definitely, and I've mentioned this, I, one of the things that had a profound. Impact on me when I was working on that thesis and also like just broadened my horizons in terms of what comics can do for those issues that I was always holding within myself was Gene Luen Yang's, American Born Chinese. It's a graphic novel from First Second,, and he actually recently, I think it was last year or the year before, signed a contract with Disney+ . So he's gonna, it's getting a live action Disney plus mini series adaptation and I'm really excited to see it cuz not only is that an adaptation of an amazing graphic novel, it's also exciting to see oh, more Asian American faces in mainstream media. So I'm really excited about how much things have changed. I wish I could go back and tell, young Sarah, hey look, it's not gonna be like this forever.

Haley Radke: Yeah. You'll be able to see yourself soon and connect with other people who've had similar experiences. Yeah, and you're making that representation for other adoptees now I'm gonna recommend your book, obviously. Monstrous. It's so good. I, first of all, I just flipped through just to see all the beautiful graphics.

Sarah Myer: Oh, thank you.

Haley Radke: You're. Sarah's a tremendous artist. Like you have no idea. It is stunning. And then reading this story is so deeply personal, and as I said before, you're so vulnerable in it sharing. And I didn't wanna spoil too much because the way you wrap things up is just poignant and insightful for, especially for fellow adoptees. So I know it's gonna speak to a lot of people and have a huge impact.

And the other thing is, this is the only, the second adoptee graphic memoir that I've seen. And perhaps there are more, but it's only the second I've seen out in the world and it is so powerful to have that representation And oh my gosh, I love how your joy and love for enemy and comics and coplay like, it's so cool.

I don't know. I, as I said before, my eight year old is like super into that stuff and I can't relate. Like when you were talking about your examples and stuff, I'm like, Sailor Moon. Okay. I heard of that. I heard of that. I remember I was a nineties kid too, so. So it also helped me inter, it helped introduce me to some things that I was like, okay, I can I can get into that. So anyway, I loved it. It's amazing. I can't wait for people to get their hands on it. How are you feeling about it coming into the world very soon?

Sarah Myer: Terrified. I have to admit, like I, I know that there are gonna be people that I know, from my hometown, who might not like the way I depicted the hometown, but ...

Haley Radke: Should have acted better if they wanted you to write less about them.

Sarah Myer: I've tried to like, make peace with that too, is, but yeah, I'm really excited about it and I hope, I guess that I also hope that it shows just, whether adoptees or not, I hope it shows another side to the East Asian American girl kind of image that's, still lingers. I feel like it's getting, we're getting further and further away from that meek and timid and submissive stereotype. But I definitely, Sarah, as a child and me, who I am now, like definitely doesn't fall into those categories. And I'm sort of hoping that while I, of course don't advocate anybody being as angry as Sarah was, I hope that it might encourage some Asian American girls out there to be a little bit more outspoken when they feel they need to speak up and speak and defend themselves. Verbally, of course.

Haley Radke: Verbally, of course. Yes. Yes. Verbally and just come on, having, I don't know, there's something about having those things depicted. It's okay, I'm not alone. I'm not a bad person. I, like it's, it can be so freeing for someone else who struggled with those, that shame and guilt of past things to be like, okay, I can work through these things and it's not just me. I think it's really validating for folks. So thank you.

And the other thing is you've got a whole list of resources in the back for adoptees, Asian Americans, for bullying help, L G B T Q organizations. And so that's lovely for folks who, read your book and are like looking for supports. Perfect. What do you wanna recommend to us today?

Sarah Myer: We talked about a little bit before this interview, Stephanie Drenka's writings. She's written for a HuffPost and a variety of other news outlets online. She's a Korean adoptee as well, and I've read some of her articles and I appreciate her candid and very passionate writing about various issues that relate to both just Asian America as well as adoptees issues.

Haley Radke: Absolutely. Stephanie's amazing and she was on the show, episode 210 and right after we recorded that episode, she left her past career behind and went on to start the Dallas Asian-American Historical Society. She's still publishing Visible Magazine, which is amazing for underrepresented writers and artists to get their work out there.

So yes, I wholeheartedly agree with your recommendation. Sarah, it's been so great talking with you. Thanks for sharing your story with us. Where can we connect with you online and make sure we can figure out how to get your book in our hands?

Sarah Myer: Yes. Thank you for having me, and the best place to find me online is sarahmeyer.net. That's my main website and I'm on Instagram and Twitter at s Meyer m y e r comics. (@smyercomics)

Haley Radke: Perfect. We will link all those things in the show notes. I know you're on LinkedIn too, and we'll link to the published page of your books so people can grab it.

Sarah Myer: First Second Books is the best, is the Publisher of Monstrous and you can order through them and it's also available on Amazon.

Haley Radke: Awesome. So it's Monstrous, a transracial adoption story by, you graphic memoirist, Sarah Meyer. And if you are a nineties kid, you have to go to Sarah's website if not, just to see teenage mutant into turtles because, bonus you. Oh my gosh. You draw them, you're part of a project where you were the colorist for a comic, I think.

Sarah Myer: Yes.

Haley Radke: Oh my gosh. So fun. So fun.

Sarah Myer: It's been a dream come true. For sure.

Haley Radke: I listened to a podcast where you were interviewed about it partial way through the show.

Sarah Myer: Oh yeah. New York Comic-Con.

Haley Radke: Yes. I'm like, oh, if little Sarah could see you now. Dream job. Thank you so much, Sarah. Just a joy to talk with you.

Sarah Myer: Thank you, Haley.

Haley Radke: Behind the production curtain, sarah and I actually recorded this conversation in January and I have been dying to release it. I'm so excited that it's out. Sarah's book will be out right away. Make sure you grab it if you're listening when this airs, or a couple days around where it airs. It is out in 2023 and we're just so excited to add another adoptee authored book into this world.

So please support them and make sure. You make sure you support the adoptee work you wanna see in this world or else we will get less of it. We are winding down towards the adoptees on summer break and so I just wanted to give you another heads up. Next week's episode is going to be our last episode until September, and there are so many episodes you can listen to in the back catalog.

If you don't wanna go without adoptee content for this summer, we're still releasing new adoptees off script podcast episodes for Patreon supporters. We have multiple live events going through the summer. Would love to have you join us. That literally is how the show is. The stay of and keeps existing in this world is through.

Your financial partnership with me, if you had to adoptee on.com/community, you can sign up and join us and make sure you don't miss out on an any of our like really amazing events. We have the adoptees off script parties where you can meet new adoptee friends. We have the adoptees only book clubs and our brand new event, ask an adoptee therapist, which is such a tremendous resource.

I'm so excited about it. So please join us adopteeson.com/community, and I'd love to see you and meet you over there. Thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.