I Always Knew There Was a Secret. What I Didn’t Know, The Secret Was Me – Dani Shapiro
Best-Selling Author is Special Guest Speaker at NGS 2021 Live!
SESSION: NGS2104-LV-03 DATE & TIME: Wednesday, 19 May 2021 at 2:00 p.m.
Dani’s session will focus on the sometimes unintended, but life-altering, consequences of genealogical DNA testing. It is the subject she explored in her latest New York Times best-selling memoir, Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love. After a lifetime spent writing about the corrosive power of secrets within families, Shapiro took a DNA test through a genealogy testing company and stumbled upon a massive family secret of her own: her beloved father was not her father. In her talk, she will discuss her journey to come to terms with medical ethics, kinship, and the multitudinous facets that make up one’s identity.
Note: Dani’s presentation is only available to view on 19 May during NGS 2021 Live! and will not be available On-Demand.
BIO: DANI SHAPIRO is the best-selling author of the memoirs Inheritance, Hourglass, Still Writing, Devotion, and Slow Motion, and five novels, and is the host of the forthcoming podcast
Family Secrets. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including The New Yorker, Vogue, The New York Times Book Review, the op-ed pages of The New York Times, and the Los
Angeles Times, and has been broadcast on This American Life. She has taught in the writing programs at Columbia, NYU, The New School, and Wesleyan University; she is co-founder of
the Sirenland Writers Conference in Italy. A contributing editor at Condé Nast Traveler, Dani lives with her family in Litchfield County, Connecticut.
To learn more about the NGS 2021 Virtual Family History Conference’s week-long events, 17-21 May, visit the conference and download a copy of the program brochure. A discounted Early Bird registration fee is available through 15 March 2021.
