About
Julie Ryan McGue is an identical twin and an adoptee. Her writing centers on finding out who you really are, where you belong, and making sense of it.
In May 2021, Julie’s memoir Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging released and immediately became the #1 New Release in Family & Personal Growth on Amazon. Since its debut, Twice a Daughter, has received many major books awards.
Julie writes a weekly blog and a monthly newspaper column called: That Girl This Life. Her work has been featured on Brevity Nonfiction Blog, Lifetime Adoption Adoptive Families Blog, Severance Magazine, Adoption & Beyond, Adoption.com, and The Imprint e-magazine.
Julie has a degree in Psychology from Indiana University and a Masters in Marketing from The Kellogg Graduate School of Business, Northwestern University. She has served multiple terms on the Board of the Midwest Adoption Center and Benet Academy College Prep High School.
She and her husband, Steve, have four adult children and split their time between NW Indiana and Sarasota. Julie is currently working on a collection of personal essays and a second memoir.
Follow her at www.juliemcgueauthor.com.
Featured Work
Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging
Julie is adopted. She is also a twin. Because their adoption was closed, she and her sister lack both a health history and their adoption papers―which becomes an issue for Julie when, at forty-eight years old, she finds herself facing several serious health issues.
To launch the probe into her closed adoption, Julie first needs the support of her sister. The twins talk things over, and make a pact: Julie will approach their adoptive parents for the adoption paperwork and investigate search options, and the sisters will split the costs involved in locating their birth relatives. But their adoptive parents aren't happy that their daughters want to locate their birth parents―and that is only the first of many obstacles Julie will come up against as she digs into her background.
Julie's search for her birth relatives spans years and involves a search agency, a PI, a confidential intermediary, a judge, an adoption agency, a social worker, and a genealogist. By journey's end, what began as a simple desire for a family medical history has evolved into a complicated quest―one that unearths secrets, lies, and family members that are literally right next door.
