USA Representative

Stephanie Flood was born in poverty in Cebu City, Philippines and adopted in the United States at the age of two. Her birth name was Desiree Maru but it changed in her adoption process. Stephanie has a background in creative writing and mixed media. She hails with a Master of Library and Information Science, a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, and Bachelor of Science in Journalism. As a Pushcart Prize Nominee (2015), her fiction, mixed media and creative nonfiction essays have been featured in numerous literary magazines and journals since 2015. Mixed media art has been featured at conferences, literary magazines and blogs. She also published the first-of-its-kind hybrid mixed media thesis with her MFA Creative Writing Program in Northern Arizona University, where she used groundbreaking visuals and epistolary literary methods to amplify her storytelling.

Stephanie has been an active member of InterCountry Adoptee Voices (ICAV), as a critical blogger and social media activist supporting intercountry adoptee voices since 2017. In 2017, she was also a school librarian for an elementary school on the Navajo reservation in Northern Arizona until she moved to Honolulu in 2018 where she supported libraries and schools. In 2022, Stephanie taught Yearbook and later Creative Writing in 2023 at Kamehameha Schools, where she published her first middle school literary magazine titled, “My Hawaiian Identity.”

Professionally, Stephanie is a Public Service Librarian residing in Indianapolis, Indiana where she works at a 6-floor downtown public library curating creative exhibits and book displays, hosting her own mixed media workshops and managing the nonfiction arts & design area of an extensive book collection. She enjoys travel, photography, cafes and sharing her life’s daily inspirations on Instagram. And on her free time, she loves to volunteer at the Philippines Cultural Community Center in Indianapolis, Indiana.

As an ICAV Representative, Stephanie is available for all intercountry adoptees locally in Indianapolis, in the greater regions of the Midwest, the United States and Northern America for hosting art and creative writing workshops virtually and in-person. She is also available for connecting adoptees and adoptive families with educational and community resources.