Nik Nadeau 임창훈

Emotionally Self-Aware Adoptive Parent: Contract for Services - The Kenyon Review Already have an account? Log in Join KR for even more to read. Sign up for a free account and read any five pieces a month. Sign Up and Read […]

My new lyric essay is now out in The @kenyonreview.bsky.social! Read it here:

kenyonreview.org/piece/emotio...

Screenshot of author bio: Nik Chang Hoon 임창훈 (he/him) is a Korean transracial adoptee, memoirist and poet based in Minneapolis. His creative nonfiction won the 2024 Annie Dillard Prize (Bellingham Review) and was named a finalist for The Iowa Review Award in nonfiction. His poetry has appeared in The Plentitudes (Winter 2025) and the Blue Earth Review (2024 Minnesota BIPOC Emerging Writer Award Runner-Up), and was named a 2024 MAYDAY Micro-chapbook Contest finalist. His most recent essays are forthcoming in The Kenyon Review and The Texas Review, respectively. Nik is a 2024-25 alum of the Bread Loaf, Kenyon Review and Tin House writers workshops, and will attend the 2025 Bread Loaf Writers' Conference as a staff scholar in poetry. Since 2023 he has trained under some of the United States' most acclaimed writers and poets, including Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Mitchell S. Jackson, Nicole Chung, Jami Nakamura Lin, Emilly Prado, Jenny Boully, Rajiv Mohabir, Sun Yung Shin, Q.M. Zhang, Shannon Gibney and Michael Kleber-Diggs. LEAVE ME, DON’T LEAVE ME, his memoir-in-progress, attempts to reconstruct his adoption origin story through personal narrative, epistles to first-family members, and speculative interstitials (e.g, to converse with his non-adopted self). As he unearths his own version of the truth, he finds acceptance of the self he has gained – even at the irreversible cost of the one he has lost. The memoir also critiques intercountry adoption as a capitalistic practice and argues for reparations to the 200,000-plus Koreans exported to Western countries since the Korean War. In past lives Nik has worked as a DEI practitioner, executive speechwriter, campaign communications director, writing center instructor and Korean high school English teacher through the Fulbright program. He enjoys taking walks with his wife and their very spoiled golden doodle, whose hobbies include barking at perfectly nice pedestrians and attempting to befriend the neighbor’s chickens.

Just updated my writer bio (nikchanghoon.com) and you know what? It makes me smile. My deepest thanks to every instructor, mentor & fellow artist who's carried me (not to mention my literal words) forward, when "forward" can often feel like falling behind, falling asleep, or just plain falling.

It began with a prompt at the 2024 Kenyon Review Writers Workshop: "Write a lyric essay that takes on an unexpected form." I wrote something, revised & delivered it at the participant reading, and was encouraged to submit it. Still in disbelief that it will appear in the @kenyonreview.bsky.social!

There is no better feeling than meeting fellow adoptee writers who are committed to telling the historical & emotional truths about adoption #AWP25

Adoptee writer power

What @shannongibney.bsky.social said!

Adoptee Literary Festival The Adoptee Literary Festival brings together writers who self-identify as having been adopted, fostered, or otherwise displaced to share their stories, make their voices heard, and reshape the narrat...

Blown away by the work of all these adoptee writers: youtube.com/@adopteelite...

My first adult memory of culture dysphoria: realizing my own language was written on the back of a package of photo paper, and not knowing exactly which one it was.

"Did you hit your word count goal today...?"

Yesssssss

Contacted my legislators to urge restored funding for #Fulbright & #CriticalLanguageScholarship (CLS) programs. I reunited with my first mother while on a Fulbright grant in 2010 and met her again after supervising the CLS Korea program in 2016. My life literally would not be the same without them.

On the plus side I presume they're not chasing away FedEx deliveries and barking at perfectly well-mannered pedestrians all day ;)

I'm so glad I have a dog whose boundless energy motivates me to get up and write

An old essay I wrote for my Korean language class ~2008. I am describing my search & reunion and clearly struggling to do so in a grammatically correct way. 3rd sentence: "I also thought a lot about whether my birth mother wouldn't want to meet me even if I wanted to meet her."

For adoptees, what is "speculation" other than our everyday existence? Not just our alternate (non-adopted) worlds & selves, but also: what if our second parents understood adoption as a capitalist system? our first parents spoke fluent English? our searches & reunions actually worked out? etc. etc.

Processing lately: how unconditional love can also include my own agency, boundaries & grieving over what a family member is unable to be or provide. That it's ok to be purely selfish to understand how I would want to be loved, accept how I am actually loved & grieve (let go of?) the difference

Last night I made 떡볶이 (spicy Korean rice cake). I cook Korean food often but typically not 떡볶이and fortunately it turned out Korean wife-approved. These small victories mean a lot to me, more than I'm sometimes willing to admit. #KoreannessReclamationProject

Omg that's ridiculous so sorry you had to experience this ignorance and meanness

This one should be good! @adoptionmosaic.bsky.social

Started as a nonfiction reader for a lit mag recently. It's already helping me see my own writing in new ways. Also, people format SO differently.

I haven't heard from my first (birth) mother in a half year. Last time this happened, I was considering flying to Korea or hiring a PI. This time, with more context & processing, I am learning to accept that even if she explains later, there is much she chooses to withhold #thisisadoption

KAAN is offering three different versions of a webinar discussion on the PBS docu that came out last fall: linktr.ee/KAANcommunity

One of the obsessions I've been writing into lately: short track speedskating. I imagine a lot, wish a lot, regret some about starting this sport so late. Leaning into turns (always left, lol) feels like what my body was designed to do. Hockey was ... not 😂

Best goal to be behind on ever!

Can't imagine my memoir project, writing life nor my human heart w/o @tinhouse.bsky.social Winter Workshop & our brilliant CNF workshop leader @nicolechung.bsky.social. "Back to writing" never felt so good! Deep thanks to @almajor.bsky.social & Lance Cleland for investing so much in us as writers.

Because some days, the name of the poet, teacher & mentor who's left an indelible mark on you & your writing over the past decade appears in your inbox, for the most glorious of reasons. Congrats, @sunyungshin.bsky.social !!! May 2026 can't come soon enough~

I ended up leaving my house like this yesterday. metaphor for: adhd life (actually real tho). korean-american cultural ID? light amid darkness? hip-spine misalignment?

@vesnajaksiclowe.bsky.social you're seriously too kind. I miss our time at Kenyon so much! all the ❤️ back your way~

Can't wait to return to this beautiful mountain for the 100th year of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, this time as a staff scholar! August can't come soon enough~

Cannot contain my excitement for this! @shannongibney.bsky.social #AdopteeLitFest2025