Tucson Festival of Books

Susan Kiyo Ito (she/her/hers)



Roark Asano

Growing up with adoptive nisei parents, Susan Kiyo Ito knew only that her birth mother was Japanese and her father was white. Meeting her birth mother in her 20s was only the beginning of her search for answers, history and identity. 

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Scheduled events:
Separated at Birth: Adoptee Voices
Millions of American adoptees have their own unique stories to tell, and in this session we will hear some of them from two authors who are themselves adoptees. Our panelists will be Marianne Novy, author of "Adoption Memoirs: Inside Stories," and Susan Kiyo Ito, author of "I Would Meet You Anywhere."

Koffler Room 216 (Seats 89, Wheelchair accessible)  View this venue on the Festival map
Sat, Mar 15, 2:30 pm - 3:25 pm
Memoir / Essays / Creative Nonfiction
Signing area: Sales & Signing Area - UA Campus Store Tent (following presentation)  View this venue on the Festival map

Authors: Susan Kiyo Ito, Marianne Novy
Moderator: Cathy Rivers
Sponsor: Session made possible courtesy of The Stonewall Foundation Fund at the Community Foundation of Southern Arizona
Susan Kiyo Ito
I Would Meet You Anywhere: A Memoir (2023) Mad Creek Books, an Imprint of The Ohio State University Press, Columbus Growing up with adoptive nisei parents, Susan Kiyo Ito knew only that her birth mother was Japanese American and her father white. But finding and meeting her birth mother in her early twenties was only the beginning of her search for answers, history, and identity. Though the two share a physical likeness, an affinity for ice cream, and a relationship that sometimes even feels familial, there is an ever-present tension between them, as a decades-long tug-of-war pits her birth mother’s desire for anonymity against Ito’s need to know her origins, to see and be seen. Along the way, Ito grapples with her own reproductive choices, the legacy of the Japanese American incarceration experience during World War II, and the true meaning of family. An account of love, what it’s like to feel neither here nor there, and one writer’s quest for the missing pieces that might make her feel whole, I Would Meet You Anywhere is the stirring culmination of Ito’s decision to embrace her right to know and tell her own story. Ito’s decades-long tug-of-war pits her birth mother’s desire for anonymity against Ito’s need to know her origins, to see and be seen. Ito grapples with her own reproductive choices, the legacy of the Japanese American incarceration experience during World War II, and the true meaning of family. An account of love, what it’s like to feel neither here nor there, and one writer’s quest for the missing pieces that might make her feel whole, I Would Meet You Anywhere is the stirring culmination of Ito’s decision to embrace her right to know and tell her own story.

Adoptee Authors, Booth #223 (Seats 1)
Sun, Mar 16, 9:00 am - 11:00 am
Memoir / Essays / Creative Nonfiction

Author: Susan Kiyo Ito

Book:
I Would Meet You Anywhere
A Memoir
Memoir / Essays / Creative Nonfiction
The Ohio State University Press
November 2023
ISBN 9780814258835
262 pages