Well,

welcome to Straight White American Jesus. My name is Brad O'Nishi. I am Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Skidmore College.

And I am thrilled to be joined today by Deardos Suguyuchi, who is a writer and actually wears a couple of different hats.

But before we get there, I want to just say we are going to be talking about her essay that appears in a new book called Empty the Pews,

stories of Leaving the Church.

And that's edited by Chrissy Stroup, who's been on our show twice now, and Lauren O'Neill.

And in that book, you'll find essays from ex-evangelicals, Mormons and others who have really found their way out of

fundamentalist and in some cases abusive religious communities.

Well, we are lucky enough to have a couple of copies to give away,

and so if you are interested in putting yourself in the running to win a copy of Empty the Pews,

go over to our Facebook page, the Straight White American. win a copy of empty the pews.

Go over to our Facebook page,

the Straight White American Jesus Facebook page

or our Twitter Straight White JC.

And there you'll find a survey you can take and some other ways that you can kind of put your name in the hat to receive one of those copies.

So with that said, I'm really thrilled to be joined by Dareda Suguchi and she is a very accomplished human being.

She is at the moment finishing her fundamental, her memoir about fundamentalist boot camp, it's called

Unreformed and it takes place at the Esquila Caribay, which we're going to talk about today.

Her work has been featured in a lot of places,

electric literature, Guernica, the Brumpus, Shondaland,

and as I just mentioned in this new anthology,

Empty the Pews, a recipient of the Mark Austin Segura Award for Non Fiction.

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