About Me

My name is Dawn Friedman and I have two kids and a delightfully odd husband, Brett. My children are Noah (born to us in 1997) and Madison (born to her first mom, Pennie*, in 2004 and brought to our family through a domestic, open adoption). I’m a freelancer and we also homeschool. This means my life looks a lot like that webcam shot there. Me, diligently working. Madison hollering. Noah off somewhere with a book.

I have been writing professionally since 1999. In that time my byline has appeared in Salon.com (where my essay about Madison’s adoption was chosen as an Editor’s Pick for 2006 and was reprinted in Adoptive Families); Brain Child (my essay “You’re Not the Boss of Me” about non-coercive parenting was reprinted in both Utne and Ode); Parenting, Yoga Journal, Wondertime, Adoptive Families, Bitch: A Feminist Response to Pop Culture and Greater Good.  My Salon.com essay also appears as “Sharing Madison” in Rebecca Walker’s anthology One Big Happy Family (Riverhead Press, 2009).

I have also written for Adoptive Families, Barnes & Noble/Spark Notes, and Disney’s Family.com. My essay, “Someone Else’s Shoes”, which is about the way blogging here impacted my adoption experience, appears in the book Mothering and Blogging: Theory and Practice (Demeter Press, 2009).

I have been blogging since 2001. My blog has been featured in Time Magazine, the Washington Times, About.com’s Parenting section, About.com’s Adoption section, and is listed as a “best adoption blog” on Adoptive Families magazine web site and Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop.com, as well as several other “best of the web” blog listing communities. I also own and operate Open Adoption Support, a social networking site for families and individuals who support openness in adoption.

I am currently writing a book with Jenna Hatfield examining how openness is changing adoption practice in America; we are represented by the Doris S. Michaels Literary Agency.

* I referred to Pennie as J when we first matched and then by her actual name Jessica later on. Pennie is her nickname and that’s what we call her in real life.