Books & Authors

Caroline Beidler, MSW is a recovery advocate and founder of the recovery storytelling platform Circle of Chairs, and has twenty years in social work and ministry. She is the author of Downstairs Church: Finding Hope in the Grit of Addiction and Trauma Recovery. Her book, You Are Not Your Trauma: Uproot Unhealthy Patterns, Heal the Family Tree, helps you identify unhealthy patterns and live more freely without your trauma—or your family’s trauma—holding you back. She lives in eastern Tennessee.

Lemuel Blackett is an ordained minister and has been in ministry for 22 years. Originally from London, he moved to New York in the late 1980s. He is a graduate of Eastern Baptist School of Religion​. He’s currently Donor and Corporate Relations Manager at Interfaith Community Services. His book, Help, I’m Dealing with Trauma offers stories and insights to help readers acknowledge all the ways we can experience trauma and how to create a mindset to move forward. He lives in San Diego, California.

Nia Chiaramonte is a human resources professional focused on creating a culture of love, inclusivity, and employees first. As co-founder of Love in the Face and co-author of Embracing Queer Families: Learning to Live Authentically in Our Families and Communities, Nia supports other transgender and LGBTQIA+ individuals and their families on their journeys of self-discovery. Her forthcoming memoir captures both the small and overarching moments leading to transition, including the navigation of relationships and faith.

Named as one of the “top 10 religion newsmakers” of 2022, Christa Brown has persisted for two decades in working to peel back the truth about clergy sex abuse and coverups in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention. She’s the author of Baptistland: A Memoir of Abuse, Betrayal, and Transformation, a retired appellate attorney, a mom, a grandma, and lives with her husband in Colorado.

Jeff Elkins, a graduate of Baylor University and Truett Seminary, was a pastor for 15 years. He left ministry to work as a writer for a tech company and is the author of more than 10 novels and 100 short stories. He is the host of the Dialogue Doctor and co-host with Leigh Erdman of the newly launched Just Came for the Tacos about life after the evangelical church. His forthcoming book will provide hope for a Christianity that can be resurrected post-evangelicalism. He lives north of Baltimore with his wife and five kids.

Trey Ferguson likes playing with words. Whether it be with tweets, videos, essays, sermonic presentations, Bible studies, podcasts, or speaking engagements, he’s always trying to provoke an image in a seeker with some combination of words. In addition to publishing his own newsletter, The Son Do Move, and hosting the New Living Treyslation and Three Black Men podcasts, and speaking especially in churches, his forthcoming, Theologizin’ Bigger, book helps our diverse world learn how to think bigger about God.

Becky Garrison was a satirist and Senior Contributing Editor for The Wittenburg Door, and is now on its board of directors since its relaunch in 2021. She’s the author of seven books including Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church and Distilled in Washington: A History. She lives in the Pacific Northwest and covers its craft culture including food, beer, wine, spirits, and more. Her forthcoming book is a satirical self-help book that will offer a guide to the different types of narcissism in spiritual communities.

Matt Kendziera is a speaker, podcaster, and musician. He is the host of the Bring It Home podcast, engaging authors, activists, and influencers on questions most people run from. He’s also a collaborator with organizations such as Rachel’s Challenge. Matt’s Bring It Home: The Adventure of Finding Yourself after Being Lost in Religion shows how stories and experiences are what connect us most intimately to the Divine, and that in our quest to find God we must first find ourselves. Matt lives with his family in Wisconsin.

Kate J. Meyer is an author, the host of #MentalHealthMondayswithKate, a public speaker, professional counselor, and ordained minister. Kate is the author of The Red Couch, a novel just out in summer 2021 about missed expectations and seeing how the past doesn’t define but informs you. Kate’s book Faith Doesn’t Erase Grief is a get-help-now manual on loss and grief at the intersections of faith and psychology, helping spiritual readers see loss more clearly. A fan of NaNoRiMo writing goals, she lives in western Michigan.

Scott Okamoto is a writer, musician, podcaster, and storyteller. He’s spent much of his professional career teaching English at a Christian college, witnessing the experience of marginalized people there, which he relays in his podcast Chapel Probation. His Asian American Apostate: Losing Religion and Finding Myself at an Evangelical University tells his unlikely spiritual journey, bringing together an evangelical past, an Asian American experience, with a contemporary world of Christian evangelicalism. He lives in Southern California with his wife and three kids.

Julia Rocchi writes prose, poetry, and prayers. She holds an MA in Writing and has published stories in Furious Gravity and Dappled Things, and other stories in the Saturday Evening Post, jmww, Bourbon Penn, 3Elements Review, Reflex Fiction and others. Julia’s book, Amen? Questions for a God I Hope Exists, is a collection of graceful musings, prayers and poems for a wandering, wondering, doubt-laden, hope-filled faith that reflects the desire to believe as much as belief itself. Julia blogs at www.juliarocchi.com and lives in northern Virginia with her family.

Katherine Spearing MA, CTRC is the founder of Tears of Eden, a nonprofit supporting survivors of spiritual abuse, and the host of Tears’ affiliate podcast Uncertain. She also hosts the podcast Trauma & Pop Culture and is a Certified Trauma Recovery Coach working primarily with clients who have survived cults, high-control environments, spiritual abuse, and sexual abuse. Her forthcoming book explains the experience and impact of spiritual abuse, as well as the survivor recovery process.

Marla Taviano is into books, love, justice, globes, anti-racism, blue, gray, rainbows, poems. She reads and writes for a living (especially @whitegirllearning). She’s a mom to some freaking awesome kids, and wears her heart on her t-shirts. On a mission/ quest/ journey to live wholefarted (not a typo). She’s the author of unbelieve: poems on the journey to becoming a heretic and jaded: a poetic reckoning with white evangelical christian indoctrination.