Minneapolis author Shannon Gibney made a splash with her first novel, "See No Color," drawn from her life as a transracial adoptee. It won the 2016 Minnesota Book Award for Young People's Literature.

She returns to writing about her own life in her just released memoir, “The Girl I Am, Was and Never Will Be.” But this a memoir unlike most. Gibney calls it speculative fiction. It explores both her life as it was — and as it might have been, had she not been adopted by a white family.

It’s a unexpected and enterprising way to wrestle with life’s “what ifs.” Gibney and host Kerri Miller will talk about it on this Friday’s Big Books and Bold Ideas.

While you wait, enjoy this conversation from the 2018 archives, when Gibney had just published her second book, "Dream Country.” It traces the oft-neglected history of free Blacks and former enslaved people who sailed back to Africa to colonize what is now known as Liberia.

Guest:

• Shannon Gibney is a writer and a professor of English at Minneapolis College. Her books include the novel, “Dream Country” and the new speculative fiction memoir, “The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be.”

To listen to the full conversation you can use the audio player above. 

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