Patrick Cottrell on Adoption & Transformation

Photo: Sarah Gerard

As I get older, I feel even more connected to my identity as an adoptee. I decided I wanted to teach a class on Asian American fiction. I did not have the typical experience of my parents being immigrants, or their parents being immigrants. But I thought, well why can’t I teach this? As an adoptee, this is part of the Asian American experience.

Patrick Cottrell is the author of Sorry to Disrupt the Peace (McSweeney’s). His work has appeared in numerous places including Granta, Buzzfeed, Vice, Bomb, The White Review, and has been anthologized in Pets (Tyrant Books). He most recently guest-edited an issue of McSweeney’s Quarterly dedicated to queer fiction. He’s the winner of a Whiting Award in Fiction and his work is being translated into Korean, French, Italian, and Turkish.