Author Biography

Roger Fenton was born in Yakima, Washington in 1947, with a part-Native American father and a white mother, and raised in Seattle. He was educated at Glacier High School (south Seattle), Reed College (Portland), the University of Washington (Seattle), the Free University of Berlin (Germany), University of Chicago Graduate Library School, College of Librarianship Wales, and Wellington (New Zealand) Polytechnic, and has degrees in German and librarianship, with diplomas in Welsh language and adult education.

In 1971 he married Auriel Stephens, from Aberystwyth, Wales, who was a teacher until her retirement. They have four adopted children, all trans-racial placements (Welsh, Scottish, Irish, English, New Zealand and Cook Island Maori, African, African-Caribbean and Guyanese) at ages ranging from four months to 7.5 years, born between 1981 and 1988. Several of the children have special needs. Their first grandchild was born in 2001.

From 1979 to 1982 he was a lecturer in librarianship at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand (where their first child was adopted), but otherwise has spent his working life in Wales, mainly as a librarian and as a researcher in Welsh history, adoption and information science, and including several years as full-time househusband and father. He has been a member of Adoption UK since the 1980s and has been their local coordinator and journal editor.

Roger’s recreational interests are reading religion and linguistics books, gardening, travel, classical music, walking the dog, and boring his children to death. His children say he’s really good at one of these.

He can be reached at roger@adoptionmedia.com.

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