AN AUTHOR'S LIFE IMITATES ART Finding My Mom After 25 Years

DECADES AFTER LOSING CONTACT WITH HER BIRTH MOTHER, STEFANY VALENTINE WROTE A NOVEL ABOUT AN ADOPTEE YEARNING FOR ANSWERS-AND THEN FOUND SOME ANSWERS OF HER OWN By RACHEL MCRADY

- By RACHEL McCRADY

Fresh off a flight from Texas to Taoyuan, Taiwan, in August 2024, Stefany Valentine was filled with nerves. She scanned through the hustle and bustle at the airport for a face she hadn't seen in person in more than two decades—her biological mother, Meiling Valentine. “I was wondering if I would recognize her in a crowd, and I did,” Stefany, 31, recalls through tears. “It was just so good to hug her for the first time. I needed that hug.”

Stefany didn’t think she’d ever get such a reunion, having believed Meiling might have died in the years following a messy divorce from Stefany’s father. Then an unexpected coincidence brought them back together from opposite sides of the world while Stefany was writing her debut novel,