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Reclaiming Autonomy through the Written Word
— A Writing Symposium for survivors of spiritual, religious, and cultic abuse
Free your voice and claim your spot at the table. You deserve to be here.
DISCOVER
the therapeutic power of writing your authentic narrative after cultic manipulation.
UNLOCK
the shame that hinders personal growth by freeing your voice.
ACCESS
tools & techniques supporting the writing journey, for personal healing or your publishing goals.
RECEIVE
inspiration and practical guidance from respected authors in the cult recovery space.
OPEN
to greater self-knowledge through the written word.
This Writing Symposium – the first of its kind – brings together leading voices, all advocating for survivors of cultic abuse to advance their healing process through the written word.
In this half-day forum, you will learn that writing may not be an easy path - but for survivors - it’s perhaps the single most accessible and effective tool for integration and healing.
Meet the Speakers
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Author, Trauma Recovery Coach and Patriarchy Disruptor
Subverting Sacred Scripts: Writing as Reclamation of Agency
Katherine Spearing invites participants into a bold, creative reimagining of what writing can offer survivors of cultic and religious abuse. Founder of Tears of Eden and author of A Thousand Tiny Paper Cuts, Katherine draws from her work as a Trauma Recovery Practitioner, artist, and storyteller to explore writing as both resistance and repair. In this session, she shows participants how writing fiction allowed her to dismantle patriarchal religious narratives and create worlds where women hold freedom, choice, and voice — an imaginative act that helped close long-standing spiritual and family wounds. She contrasts this with the vulnerable complexity of memoir - where discernment and therapeutic support can help one to avoid regrets later. From novels to blogs to long-form reflection, Katherine demonstrates how different forms of writing serve different stages of healing — and how we can challenge inherited norms without sacrificing ourselves in the process.
Survivor, Poet, and Unapologetic Truth-Teller
From Reaction to Intention: Authorship and the Power of Naming
Named a Pioneer of Poetry by NUSPA and a 2019 Poet Laureate of Alexandria, VA nominee, C. brings an unapologetic, genre-defying voice to the Reclaiming Autonomy Writing Symposium. A published poet, performer, and advocate, C. will guide participants through a process where writing becomes a radical act of authorship for survivors of harm. In this powerful session, participants will experience how poetry and narrative can allow survivors to name their experiences without being consumed by them — shifting from reaction to intention. Writing, for C., is not about reliving trauma, but choosing what it does not get to take. With clarity, presence, and fierce compassion, this presentation invites participants to consider how language can restore agency, challenge silencing systems, and move the story beyond injury toward choice, voice, and self-definition.
Lisa Kohn brings raw honesty, hard-earned wisdom, and an electric presence to the Reclaiming Autonomy Writing Symposium. Having grown up between a religious cult and New York City’s sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll world, Lisa knows the exhaustion of self-judgment and the ache of disconnection that many survivors carry. In this session, she explores how writing — especially memoir — can become a powerful practice of self-compassion and reclamation. As the author of To the Moon and Back, Lisa reflects on how telling her story opened unexpected doors: to community, to belonging, and to a deeper sense of self-love. Drawing from psychology, neuroplasticity, and lived experience, Lisa invites participants to see writing not as self-exposure, but as self-devotion — a way to soften shame, challenge internalized control, and remember that loving yourself - first, most, always - is not selfish, but revolutionary.
Author, Speaker, and Champion of Radical Self-Love
Self-Love Is Your Superpower: Writing Toward Wholeness After Cultic Harm
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Since the spring of 2020, Gerette has supported survivors to engage in their recovery journey through Writing to ReckonTM programs. She created the Reclaiming Autonomy symposium - bringing respected leaders offering their best advice - out of her passion for freeing voices that were silenced by cultic manipulation.
Through Writing to ReckonTM programs, Gerette has witnessed the discovery of honest narrative allowing an inner sense of freedom to emerge. The goal of this symposium is to encourage as many survivors as possible to engage with this simple and life-enhancing practice. Writing is a powerful tool for unburdening the self.
Writing walks us through past trauma in such a way that we get to see the past more clearly and “own” our actions. When we write for our well being, we get to face our experiences head on, bringing honesty to the page. This opens up a sense of inner freedom that can be a core part of our recovery process.
Meet the Past Speakers:
You can purchase or rent recordings from previous symposiums by visiting Living Cult Free, the nonprofit. All proceeds directly support their advocacy and educational work.
Fall 2025
DR CHRISTINE COCCHIOLA
Writing for Social Justice and Reclaiming Voice
How can writing become a force for justice — personal and systemic? In this compassionate and empowering session, clinician, educator, and survivor Dr. Christine Cocchiola shares how writing has helped her reclaim her voice and deepen her lifelong advocacy for those impacted by coercive control. Drawing from her book Framed: Women in the Family Court Underworld, her soon-to-be released children’s book, and her forthcoming memoir/guidebook, Christine illustrates how storytelling can expose hidden systems of harm and spark meaningful change. With warmth and fierce clarity, she invites survivors to explore writing as a powerful tool for truth-telling, resistance, and reclaiming one’s inner authority.
WENG PIXIN
Drawing and Writing: How Comics Help Tell the Story
How might images and words work together to express what feels too complex — or too painful — for words alone? In this gentle, visually rich session, artist and graphic memoirist Weng Pixin (Pix) shares how she uses character-based cartooning and intuitive dialogue to tell the story of her own experience with cultic entrapment. Through her newest book Wake Up, Pixoto! Pix explores how drawing - combined with writing - can open new doors to self-inquiry and narrative clarity. Participants will be invited to see how comics can transcend language and cultural barriers, and how combining drawing and writing can spark deeper reflection and healing while engaging (and educating) readers.
What if your memory isn’t just a record of what happened — but a foundation for how you’ve made meaning? In this warm, exploratory session, writer, teacher, and podcast host Ronit Plank invites us to consider how we remember as a key to understanding our personal narratives. Drawing from her own story of estrangement and reunion, as well as interviews with memoirists like Vivian Gornick and Abigail Thomas and neuroscientists like Dr. Virginia Campbell, Ronit shares insights into working with memory as a creative and healing force. With the belief that stories save us, she helps participants approach their own writing with clarity, courage, and self-compassion.
RONIT PLANK
The Truth About Memory: Understanding and Embracing Your Story
Spring 2025
CATHRINE MOESTUE
Writing Through Shame, Fear and Grief: How Embracing Self-Compassion can lead to Empowerment and Resilience in the aftermath of Trauma
Drawing from her work as a clinical psychologist and expert on social influence, Cathrine will speak about her personal process of finally putting to words her experience of radical identity change. Completing her 2024 memoir The Cult - They Called Me Roxy, allowed her to confront and process deep-seated feelings of shame, fear and vulnerability. As a dynamic, insightful speaker, she will shine a light on the lingering impact of cultic indoctrination and offer strategies on how to navigate complex emotions through the written word.
DANIEL BARBAN LEVIN
Rebuilding with Rubble: The Power and Danger of Poetic Recollection
As a survivor, educator, documentary producer of Stolen Youth, whistleblower, memoirist of Slonim Woods 9, and poet, Daniel will share his views on the nature of traumatic memory and the act of meeting such experiences with the written word. He will discuss the inherent risks in abandoning narrative, as well as the powerful, integrative potential of applying poetic tools to the recollection of the inexpressible. As a survivor who has plumbed the depths of cultic trauma in an effort to save lives, not least his own, he will offer inspiration and practical tools for survivors, writers, and human beings whose experiences, like poison from a bite, beg to be expressed.
Few survivors confront the cultic roots in current events with the grounded clarity that Tia provides. Rising out of her narrow escape from Christian Patriarchy Tia’s unique capacity fuels her deeper passion: exploring the essential ingredients for survivors to thrive after abuse and how writing can be integral in the healing process. What began as a therapy journal, evolved into a draft of a novel, and then, over a decade, transformed into her NYT bestselling memoir A Well Trained Wife. As a fierce advocate for survivors of church-sanctioned abuse, Tia will speak openly from her direct experience, offering clarity and practical tools relevant to all impacted by coercive control.
TIA LEVINGS
The Keys to Passion and Self Preservation Post Religious Trauma: Self Care and the Written Word
Fall 2024
SARAH
EDMONDSON
Whistleblower: The Perils and Opportunities of Life in the Public Eye and Choices in Publishing
Renowned podcaster, author and cult-recovery advocate, Sarah Emondson will speak about her recovery journey through writing - including everything she wishes she had known before publishing her first book, Scarred: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, the Cult that Bound My Life. This includes her thoughts on traditional versus self-publishing and co or ghostwriting versus doing it yourself. Her insight on the pros and cons of whistleblowing will offer a relevant perspective on the complex decision-making involved in writing for the public.
DAN SHAW
Forced to Persist - How Academic Writing Requirements Can Support Personal and Professional Growth
As a psychotherapist and former cult-member, Dan Shaw will share how painfully difficult it was for him at first to fulfill writing requirements for his training in mental health. Forced to persist, writing turned out to be a deeply meaningful and rewarding way of reclaiming his voice, which had been all but silenced during his time in the cult. He has gone on to be the successful author of two books on Traumatic Narcissism theory, work that came directly out of his reflections on his cult experience, and from his work with trauma survivors.
A dynamic presenter and author, Shelly Snow Pordea will pull back the curtain on two underrepresented forms of writing for survivors: Fiction and Screenwriting. Drawing from her lived experience of growing up in a religious cult, Shelly skillfully weaves real-life issues with imaginative expression - an art available to all writers. Shelly will address how this process can support personal healing and even brain function. Her work as a publishing consultant will also be touched on in this presentation, creating a content-rich opportunity for writers of all genres.
SHELLY
SNOW PORDEA
Imaginative Expression: Using Fiction & Screenwriting as Power Tools for Integration
Esther Friedman’s training as an Expressive Arts Therapist took on new meaning after she emerged from a secretive, esoteric cult. She channeled her pain and passion for justice into blog writing. Brash and unapologetic, her anger roared through her writing - prompting a short-lived legal battle. From blog writing, she shifted to songwriting and later into authoring The Gentle Souls Revolution. Writers will be wowed by her unpretentious brilliance and her snarky reverence for the essential role both humor and anger can play in cult recovery.
ESTHER FRIEDMAN
Channeling Pain and Passion for Justice into Blog Writing, Songwriting, and Book Publishing
Spring 2024
“Writing is a journey, and along the way,
we discover who we are meant to be.”
Dani Shapiro
Memoirist/ Author