Welcome!
About Roots & Branches
I’m Mary Ellen (Mel) Gambutti, writing memoir and personal essay in themes of adoption, identity, heritage, memory, and renewal. Roots & Branches also includes the new Section, Seasons for Japanese-inspired image poetry, reflections on gardens and nature, nostalgic vignettes, and the life stories that root us. And now, a second new Section, The Garden Between Worlds, to feature my forthcoming novella, Through the Yew Hedge: A Tale of Identity Magic (pen name Islay Corwin) exploring adoption and belonging through Magical Realism. I hope you’ll join me on this journey between myth and memory.
I’m the author of Permanent Home: A Memory Collection, and three memoirs on recovery: Stroke Story, Coming to Terms, and Fortitude’s Footing. My adoption memoir is I Must Have Wandered: An Adopted Air Force Daughter Recalls.
