Irene Spencer
Irene Spencer came from five generations of polygamy. As the second of ten wives, she was the mother of 14 of her husband's 58 children. Her captivating story provides an intimate look at the daily struggles Irene faced as a plural wife.
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Carlotta Walls LaNier
Carlotta Walls LaNier made history as the youngest member of the Little Rock Nine, the nine African-American students who desegregated Central High School in Little Rock (Pulaski County) in 1957.
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The oldest of three daughters, Carlotta Walls was born on December 18, 1942, in Little Rock to Juanita and Cartelyou Walls. Her father was a brick mason and a World War II veteran, and her mother was a secretary in the Office of Public Housing.
Inspired by Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white passenger sparked the 1955 Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott, as well as the desire to get the best education available, Walls enrolled in Central High School as a sophomore. Some white students called her names and spat on her, and armed -
Heather Sellers
Heather Sellers has a PhD in English/Creative Writing from Florida State University. She’s a professor of English at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where she teaches poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction writing courses. She won an NEA grant for fiction and her first book of fiction, Georgia Under Water, was part of the Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers program.
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Susan Ray Schmidt
Susan Ray Schmidt is an American author, activist and lecturer, notable for her memoir and anti-polygamy activism.
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Schmidt's memoir, Favorite Wife: Escape from Polygamy, describes the abuses she suffered while practicing polygamy and adopts a firm anti-polygamy stance. It details leaving Mormon fundamentalism for mainstream Christianity and her beliefs on spirituality. -
Carolyn Jessop
Carolyn Jessop is a former Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints member who wrote Escape, an autobiographical account of her upbringing in the polygamist sect and later flight from that community.
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She is the cousin, by marriage, of Flora Jessop, another former FLDS member and advocate for abused children.
Carolyn Jessop now lives in the Salt Lake City area with her children.
As of July 2010, Carolyn is engaged to Brian Moroney, who asked her to be his wife in front of her children who are very excited.
After accepting Brian's proposal Carolyn quoted on her Facebook page "Choice is a beautiful thing!" -
Elissa Wall
Elissa Wall detailing her childhood in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) and subsequent later life outside of the church. It was first published by William Morrow and Company in 2008.
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Wall was born into a polygamous family in Salt Lake City and grew up attending the FLDS-run Alta Academy. She describes her living situation as tense; familial relations were further complicated when her mother was reassigned to marry another man in Hildale, Utah.
FLDS leaders orchestrated a marriage between Wall, then 14, and her 19-year-old cousin, Allen Steed, an arrangement she claims to have vehemently opposed. During their four-year marriage, Steed allegedly abused her sexually and psychologically, and Wall eventually b -
Flora Jessop
Flora Jessop was born and raised in Colorado City, Arizona. She was raised in a polygamous family, with two mothers and twenty-seven siblings, all members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS).
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When she was sixteen years old, after years of abuse, including being impregnated by her own father and being forced to marry her first cousin, Phillip Jessop, she fled her family and faith. After many years as a vagabond in Middle and Southwest America, Jessop finally sought legal justice, and was awarded $10,000 in a lawsuit against the State Of Arizona for failing to protect her from the abuse she suffered.
Jessop finally settled in Galena, Kansas where she soon met a man named Tim and created a family unit with h -
Brent W. Jeffs
Brent W. Jeffs is an author, advocate, and member of the influential Jeffs family in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS Church).
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Jeffs wrote the memoir Lost Boy along with author Maia Szalavitz, which was released on May 19, 2009. The book is a depiction of life within the FLDS Church and his ostracism from the organization at a young age. The title of the book comes from the term "the lost boys", which refers to the many young men expelled from the FLDS Church. Jeffs is grandson to FLDS prophet Rulon Jeffs, nephew to FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs, and his mother is the daughter of another non-FLDS prophet as well. -
Sam Brower
Brower is known as the man who cracked open the secretive world of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS). His work led to the arrest and conviction of prophet Warren Jeffs, who is currently serving a life sentence plus 20 years in a Texas prison for child sexual assault.
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Brower details the investigation in his new book, Prophet's Prey: My Seven-Year Investigation into Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints. -
Rebecca Musser
Rebecca Musser is a highly sought-after motivational speaker and agent for social revolution. She empowers women around the world to escape from bondage in all its forms, because as she has said, “I was once owned, too.”
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Born into the FLDS, an extreme, isolated, polygamist sect of the Mormon faith, as a teenager she was forced in marriage to the 85-year-old prophet; destined to be his 19th wife of sixty-five. After enduring years of violation, upon her husband’s death she escaped from his son, Warren Jeffs, when he tried to force her to remarry. On behalf of her little sisters and other voiceless young girls trapped within that culture, Rebecca testified over 20 times against cult leaders to bring evidence to light, and freedom to her peopl -
Ruth Wariner
RUTH WARINER lives in Portland, Oregon. At the age of fifteen, Wariner left Colonia LeBaron, the polygamist Mormon colony where she grew up, and moved to California. She raised her three youngest sisters in California and Oregon. After earning her GED, she put herself through college and graduate school, eventually becoming a high school Spanish teacher. She remains close to her siblings and is happily married. THE SOUND OF GRAVEL is her first book.
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Anna LeBaron
One of more than fifty children of infamous, polygamist cult leader, Ervil LeBaron, Anna LeBaron endured abandonment, horrific living conditions, child labor, and sexual grooming. At age thirteen, she escaped the violent cult, gave her life to Christ, and sought healing. A gifted communicator and personal growth activist, she’s passionate about helping others walk in freedom. Anna lives in the DFW Metroplex and loves being Mom to her five grown children.
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Carolyn Jessop
Carolyn Jessop is a former Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints member who wrote Escape, an autobiographical account of her upbringing in the polygamist sect and later flight from that community.
Buy books on Amazon
She is the cousin, by marriage, of Flora Jessop, another former FLDS member and advocate for abused children.
Carolyn Jessop now lives in the Salt Lake City area with her children.
As of July 2010, Carolyn is engaged to Brian Moroney, who asked her to be his wife in front of her children who are very excited.
After accepting Brian's proposal Carolyn quoted on her Facebook page "Choice is a beautiful thing!" -
Elissa Wall
Elissa Wall detailing her childhood in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) and subsequent later life outside of the church. It was first published by William Morrow and Company in 2008.
Buy books on Amazon
Wall was born into a polygamous family in Salt Lake City and grew up attending the FLDS-run Alta Academy. She describes her living situation as tense; familial relations were further complicated when her mother was reassigned to marry another man in Hildale, Utah.
FLDS leaders orchestrated a marriage between Wall, then 14, and her 19-year-old cousin, Allen Steed, an arrangement she claims to have vehemently opposed. During their four-year marriage, Steed allegedly abused her sexually and psychologically, and Wall eventually b -
Sam Brower
Brower is known as the man who cracked open the secretive world of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS). His work led to the arrest and conviction of prophet Warren Jeffs, who is currently serving a life sentence plus 20 years in a Texas prison for child sexual assault.
Buy books on Amazon
Brower details the investigation in his new book, Prophet's Prey: My Seven-Year Investigation into Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints. -
Ruth Wariner
RUTH WARINER lives in Portland, Oregon. At the age of fifteen, Wariner left Colonia LeBaron, the polygamist Mormon colony where she grew up, and moved to California. She raised her three youngest sisters in California and Oregon. After earning her GED, she put herself through college and graduate school, eventually becoming a high school Spanish teacher. She remains close to her siblings and is happily married. THE SOUND OF GRAVEL is her first book.
Buy books on Amazon -
Brent W. Jeffs
Brent W. Jeffs is an author, advocate, and member of the influential Jeffs family in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS Church).
Buy books on Amazon
Jeffs wrote the memoir Lost Boy along with author Maia Szalavitz, which was released on May 19, 2009. The book is a depiction of life within the FLDS Church and his ostracism from the organization at a young age. The title of the book comes from the term "the lost boys", which refers to the many young men expelled from the FLDS Church. Jeffs is grandson to FLDS prophet Rulon Jeffs, nephew to FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs, and his mother is the daughter of another non-FLDS prophet as well. -
Maude Julien
Maude Julien has been a therapist for over 20 years, specializing in trauma and in methods of dealing with mental and behavioral manipulation. She is the author of The Only Girl in the World, a memoir and “escape manual” in which she tells the story of her childhood, filled with extreme mental and behavioral control at the hands of her parents, and recounts how she managed to break free.
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Ben Bradlee Jr.
Ben Bradlee, Jr., spent 25 years at the Boston Globe as a reporter and editor, overseeing as deputy managing editor, among many critically acclaimed stories, the Globe's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. Bradlee has three children. He and his wife Janice live outside Boston.
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Son of Ben Bradlee. -
Mary Anna King
Mary King was born in southern New Jersey and grew up in Oklahoma City, OK, where she was adopted at the age of ten. After studying English Literature at Colgate University she moved to Los Angeles where she lives and writes. Her memoir, Bastards– the story of how she and her six biological siblings were separated and reunited– is forthcoming from W.W. Norton & Co in June of 2015.
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Sayo Masuda
Masuda was born in 1925, near the town of Shiojiri in Nagano Prefecture. During her later teen years, into her early twenties, she was an onsen geisha at a hot-spring resort in Japan. After this, she became a prostitute, vigorously protesting the passage of anti-prostitution laws. She eventually got a job making soap for a Korean worker, which she held for several months. When the soap business failed, she began drinking heavily, which led to her near death from liver failure and a suicide attempt. She survived and quit drinking, and when she had sufficiently recovered, she began to look after children, eventually becoming a full-time caretaker for several years. Eventually, she was able to open her own restaurant, and ran it for several de
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Jeannine Ouellette
Jeannine Ouellette’s debut memoir, The Part That Burns, was a Kirkus Top 100 Indie Book of 2021 and a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Award in Women's Literature and has been praised by Dorothy Allison, Joyce Carol Oates, Marion Winik, Melissa Febos, Gina Frangello, Sue William Silverman, and many others. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Narrative, LA Review of Books, North American Review, Masters Review, Penn Review, and more, as well as in many anthologies, including Ms. Aligned: Women Writing About Men; Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives; and Passed On: Daughters Write About Father Loss, Lack, and Legacy. A fellow of Millay Colony for the Arts and Brush Creek Foundation, Jeannine teaches creative writing thr
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Susan Ray Schmidt
Susan Ray Schmidt is an American author, activist and lecturer, notable for her memoir and anti-polygamy activism.
Buy books on Amazon
Schmidt's memoir, Favorite Wife: Escape from Polygamy, describes the abuses she suffered while practicing polygamy and adopts a firm anti-polygamy stance. It details leaving Mormon fundamentalism for mainstream Christianity and her beliefs on spirituality. -
Rebecca Musser
Rebecca Musser is a highly sought-after motivational speaker and agent for social revolution. She empowers women around the world to escape from bondage in all its forms, because as she has said, “I was once owned, too.”
Buy books on Amazon
Born into the FLDS, an extreme, isolated, polygamist sect of the Mormon faith, as a teenager she was forced in marriage to the 85-year-old prophet; destined to be his 19th wife of sixty-five. After enduring years of violation, upon her husband’s death she escaped from his son, Warren Jeffs, when he tried to force her to remarry. On behalf of her little sisters and other voiceless young girls trapped within that culture, Rebecca testified over 20 times against cult leaders to bring evidence to light, and freedom to her peopl -
Anna LeBaron
One of more than fifty children of infamous, polygamist cult leader, Ervil LeBaron, Anna LeBaron endured abandonment, horrific living conditions, child labor, and sexual grooming. At age thirteen, she escaped the violent cult, gave her life to Christ, and sought healing. A gifted communicator and personal growth activist, she’s passionate about helping others walk in freedom. Anna lives in the DFW Metroplex and loves being Mom to her five grown children.
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Trina Robbins
Trina Robbins is an American comics artist and writer. She was an early and influential participant in the underground comix movement, and one of the few female artists in underground comix when she started. Her first comics were printed in the East Village Other. She later joined the staff of a feminist underground newspaper It Ain't Me, Babe, with whom she produced the first all-woman comic book titled It Ain't Me Babe. She became increasingly involved in creating outlets for and promoting female comics artists, through projects such as the comics anthology Wimmen's Comix. She was also the penciller on Wonder Woman for a time in the '80s.
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Trina has worked on an adaptation of Sax Rohmer's Dope for Eclipse Comics and GoGirl with artist Anne -
Kristyn Decker
With five kids still at home, Kristyn Decker began taking college courses and working as an assistant teacher in the Head Start program. After earning an associate's degree, she was a lead teacher for four years. Then Kristyn taught child development classes for Children First and volunteered with several projects relating to quality Child Care. In 2002, she received a bachelor's degree in elementary education and early childhood development from Southern Utah University. She ended her nearly thirty-three-year marriage in 2002.
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Seven years later, Kristyn married LeRoy Decker. She founded the Sound Choices Coalition in June 2012 after publishing her first book, Fifty Years in Polygamy: Big Secrets and Little White Lies.
Kristyn spends most o -
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Lilia Tarawa
Lilia Tarawa is a New Zealand Māori #1 best-selling author and transformational speaker whose personal story has inspired millions of people around the world to speak their truth and claim their power.
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Her #1 best-selling memoir Daughter of Gloriavale: My Life in a Religious Cult, was written in 4 months, part-time around her day job.
Her TEDxTalk, 'I grew up in a cult. It was heaven—and hell.' rocketed to over eight-and-a-half million views on YouTube, achieved 2018 Top Five most-viewed TEDxTalks in the Worldand is transcribed into six different languages on TED.com
The 5’44 curly-haired brunette passionately tells inspiring stories to anyone with listening ears and to her surprise, she’s managed to get quite a crowd to listen, including the -
Flora Jessop
Flora Jessop was born and raised in Colorado City, Arizona. She was raised in a polygamous family, with two mothers and twenty-seven siblings, all members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS).
Buy books on Amazon
When she was sixteen years old, after years of abuse, including being impregnated by her own father and being forced to marry her first cousin, Phillip Jessop, she fled her family and faith. After many years as a vagabond in Middle and Southwest America, Jessop finally sought legal justice, and was awarded $10,000 in a lawsuit against the State Of Arizona for failing to protect her from the abuse she suffered.
Jessop finally settled in Galena, Kansas where she soon met a man named Tim and created a family unit with h