Books / Authors
![Help I'm Dealing with Trauma cover](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/HelpDealingTrauma-300-x-500-e1702646443478.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
![Help I'm Dealing with Trauma cover](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/HelpDealingTrauma-300-x-500-e1702646443478.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
What does trauma look like, how does it show up in your life, and what do you do about it? Lemuel R.T. Blackett reveals uncensored, real-life experiences that have shaped him, and reminds you how resiliency, faith, getting help, and believing in yourself will see you through.
![jaded by Marla Taviano](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/jaded.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
![jaded by Marla Taviano](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/jaded.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
For those picking up pieces of life and faith and figuring out how to heal and move forward, jaded is a collection of poems—short, thoughtful, brave, and spicy—about getting stuff off our chests.
![Theologizin Bigger](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Theologizin-Bigger-cover-e1702517341761.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
![Theologizin Bigger](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Theologizin-Bigger-cover-e1702517341761.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
Pastor, podcaster, and public theologian Trey Ferguson encourages you to re-engage your imagination, and to construct theologies that speak to our current contexts, just as people of faith have done throughout history.
![After Evangelicalism Group Study Guide](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/AfterEvangelicalism_StudyGuide-400-x-616-e1702647305545.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
![After Evangelicalism Group Study Guide](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/AfterEvangelicalism_StudyGuide-400-x-616-e1702647305545.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
As one of America’s leading public scholars on religion today, David Gushee’s After Evangelicalism shines a light on the path forward. The After Evangelicalism Group Study Guide encourages people to read and reflect together on Christianity after evangelicalism.
![Bring It Home by Matt Kendziera](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Bring-It-Home-Cover-300-e1702646155147.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
![Bring It Home by Matt Kendziera](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Bring-It-Home-Cover-300-e1702646155147.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
Matt Kendziera offers engaging, funny, and touching stories of rediscovering yourself after being lost in too much religion, helping you better see the original blueprint of your own life, a meaningful life with a deep connection to the divine.
![Giving Up God](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Giving-Up-God-e1702516182462.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
![Giving Up God](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Giving-Up-God-e1702516182462.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
Many of us are taught to believe that our only hope is in a supernatural, all-powerful, Christian God. Yet we wonder, is God really real? While the church seems to be shutting out those who have questions, Sarah Henn Hayward shows us how to discover who we are beyond handed-down religion.
![Intersexion](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Intersexion_FIN-e1702644976111.jpeg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
![Intersexion](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Intersexion_FIN-e1702644976111.jpeg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
Cynthia Vacca Davis offers a hopeful exploration of the cost of coming out—as a sexual minority, ally, or asker of difficult questions—and what it means to come into one’s own. It’s a book for anyone craving a more authentic life, a book about intersections we find ourselves in by no choice of our own.
![whole by Marla Taviano](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Whole-Cover-Image.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
![whole by Marla Taviano](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Whole-Cover-Image.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
Marla Taviano sets out on a journey to become whole after faith deconstruction, a journey you too will enjoy in these poems about looking back to move forward, new thoughts on god, our inner lives, embodied living, and books, books, books.
![Faith Doesn't Erase Grief](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/FaithEraseGrief_cvrComps3.7-e1702647068124-683x1024.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
![Faith Doesn't Erase Grief](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/FaithEraseGrief_cvrComps3.7-e1702647068124-683x1024.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
The grieving process is part of being human, but far too often, grievers are rushed into rejoicing that their loved one is in heaven. It is time for a better way to acknowledge that you can struggle with grief and still love God.
![Lost Faith and Wandering Souls](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/lost-faith-and-wandering-souls-e1702517191275.jpeg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
![Lost Faith and Wandering Souls](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/lost-faith-and-wandering-souls-e1702517191275.jpeg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
David Morris reveals the religious identity crisis of our time and the full power of the psychological journey. By looking beneath the surface at deeper, lifelong dynamics, he shows a way to mourn our losses so we can move to a healthier spirituality.
![Stumbling by Brandon Flanery](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Sumbling-400-x-640-e1702646890844.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
![Stumbling by Brandon Flanery](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Sumbling-400-x-640-e1702646890844.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
As millions exit the church due to its politics and its treatment of LGBTQ+ people, Brandon Flanery gives us a glimpse into why he and others are leaving and to bring us the hope he’s found on the other side.
![Cradled in the Arms of Compassion](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Cradled-in-the-Arms-of-Compassion-400-x-602.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
![Cradled in the Arms of Compassion](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Cradled-in-the-Arms-of-Compassion-400-x-602.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
Frank Rogers offers a narrative account of transformation and a spiritual memoir that details the survivor’s journey. It's an extraordinary application of imaginative meditation that readers will find utterly fascinating.
![This Little Light](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/This-Little-Light.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
![This Little Light](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/This-Little-Light.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
In this groundbreaking memoir and exposé, Christa Brown tells the story of clergy sex abuse and cover-ups in the largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention.
![Hope in the 2020s](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Hope-in-the-2020s-400-x-642-e1702645033847.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
![Hope in the 2020s](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Hope-in-the-2020s-400-x-642-e1702645033847.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
Discover a book where with each reading you’ll find a slice of hope to brighten your day. Each of the spiritual storytellers, thinkers, and practitioners offer an antidote, an idea, or some action step that leads you into hope.
![Unbelieve Marla Taviano](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/unbelieve-e1702516236247.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
![Unbelieve Marla Taviano](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/unbelieve-e1702516236247.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
Marla Taviano—author, single mom, and former very-good-Christian-girl who had all the answers—welcomes you into a space of poems, observations, and truths where you can let it all out, let it all go, and start heading in brave new directions.
![Baptistland by Christa Brown](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Baptistland-e1707507617150.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
![Baptistland by Christa Brown](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Baptistland-e1707507617150.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
Baptistland weaves together a story of love, peace, and goodness despite a context of a troubled Southern family, society, and religion that devalues women and ignores its own abusive transgressions and hypocrisy.
![You Are Not Your Trauma](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/You-Are-Not-Your-Trauma.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
![You Are Not Your Trauma](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/You-Are-Not-Your-Trauma.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
Identify unhealthy patterns that keep you stuck and learn how to live more freely in your life without your trauma—or your family’s trauma—holding you back. Mental health expert Caroline Beidler will guide you along five rhythms that promote trauma healing and recovery.
![Asian American Apostate](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Asian-American-Apostate-400-x-600-medium-res-v2-e1702646719290.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
![Asian American Apostate](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Asian-American-Apostate-400-x-600-medium-res-v2-e1702646719290.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
R. Scott Okamoto had no idea just what his job as an English teacher at an evangelical Christian college would show him—the bigotry he experienced as an Asian American, the faux intellectualism he fought as a teacher—or how much it would spur him to discover who he was.
![Amen?](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Amen-Cover-e1702647177361-683x1024.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
![Amen?](https://b2874417.smushcdn.com/2874417/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Amen-Cover-e1702647177361-683x1024.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
From a place of vulnerability, Julia Rocchi offers a collection of personal prayers and essays for practicing penitents and devoted doubters. With fresh imagery and prose to help you pause, this book encourages us to ask questions, invite joy, and grapple with mystery.
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What If I Don’t Believe in God?
My brother told me he was an atheist at the start of a car ride. He opened up the conversation as if he were coming clean. “I want to have faith,” he said. “I really do. But I have to be honest and say I don’t.” At first I was taken aback. I knew my brother wasn’t...
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At an Intersection on Queer Inclusion, But Not on the Fence
I slid into the high-backed vinyl chair across from Mitchell’s desk, grateful to be wearing black. The dark fabric masked the stickiness—part nervous perspiration, part fortitude—that was seeping from my pores. Arguably my entire life had been moving toward this...
Why Are People Buying More Ebooks and Audiobooks of Christa Brown’s Baptistland?
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Quit The Bible in a Year Reading Plan
Do you know those “Bible in a year” reading plans? They map out daily readings, suggesting various parts of the Bible to read all in one day. A little Old Testament, a little Psalms, a little of the Gospels, a little New Testament. So after 365 days, you’ve read the...
Christa Brown’s Ms. Magazine Article: Southern Baptists on a Mission of Misogyny
Lake Drive Books author Christa Brown recently published a Ms. Magazine article "Southern Baptists Pursue a Mission of Misogyny". On the eve of the next annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention starting this Sunday, Brown calls out the SBC for their...
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 forthcoming 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.
Cynthia Vacca Davis is an adjunct professor with an MFA in writing, teaching narrative nonfiction at Christopher Newport University. She’s written hundreds of feature stories, columns, and essays, as well as young adult novels. She enjoys telling stories, always searching for the threads that connect us to community. Her memoir Intersexion is told from alternating first-person perspectives and plays out at the intersection of social and religious tension around gender and sexuality. She lives in southwestern Virginia.
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.
Brandon Flanery writes about honest, messy things, specifically around faith and sexuality. He’s published with the Colorado Springs Indy, The Scribe, Baptist News Global, and has academic essays with the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. His forthcoming memoir is about being raised in evangelical Christendom as a closeted gay man, and unwinding what is real and true for him post-closet, an ever-twisting journey—full of trailblazing, thorn bushes, and dead ends. He lives in Atlanta.
Sarah Henn Hayward is a physical therapist, a devoted book fanatic, and life-long seeker of truth. After traveling the world, meeting people of different faiths, making queer friends, and learning about human evolution, she surprised herself by rejecting her entire former belief system. Her Giving Up God: Resurrecting a Spirituality of Love and Wonder reveals the struggle for a new identity through exploring new vistas in physics, philosophy, and alternative theologies. Follow @shaywardwrites on Instagram or at sarahhennhayward.com
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.
David Morris is the author of Lost Faith and Wandering Souls: A Psychology of Disillusionment, Mourning, and the Return of Hope. He is the publisher of Lake Drive Books and a literary agent at Hyponymous Consulting, two innovative ventures working together to specialize in authors and books that help people heal, grow, and discover. David holds a PhD in psychology and religion from Drew University. He lives with his wife in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and they have two daughters. Visit davidrmorris.me.
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.
Frank Rogers is a professor (Claremont School of Theology), trained spiritual guide, retreat leader, and the author of Practicing Compassion, Compassion in Practice: The Way of Jesus, and The God of Shattered Glass, a novel. He focuses on spirituality that is contemplative, creative, and socially liberative. Rogers’s Cradled in the Arms of Compassion is a spiritual memoir of going from trauma to recovery. He is the cofounder of the Center for Engaged Compassion and lives in Southern California.
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.
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