THE DEBUT MEMOIR OF New York Times bestselling author, Tia Levings, is entitled, A Well-Trained Wife, My Escape from Christian Patriarchy. Recently published by Saint Martin’s Press, along with being a New York Times bestseller, the book is an Audible Canada Best of the Year for 2024 and a Goodreads Reader’s Choice book. Tia maintains an educational platform on social media, speaking engagements, an anti-fundamentalist column, and bylines in major publications. You may have seen her as part of the hit 2023 docu-series on Amazon, “Shiny Happy People,” heard her on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast, or read her Substack column. Listen in and read along as she and I discuss knowing when is the right time to write your truth, and much more.

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 Tia: Thank you so much for having me.

Marion: Well, it’s delightful to meet you, and not the least of which because you’re a redhead, and I happen to really trust redheads more than anyone else, having been one all my life. But mostly because you’re a teller of your truth.

And so, let’s just set this up for everybody. In your bio on your website, you identify as a quote, “former trad wife and Christian fundamentalist” and much more. But let’s get everyone using the same vocabulary. Define “trad wife” for us, please.

Tia: Yeah, it’s just the lingo of the day. It’s an abbreviated form of the word “traditional.” So, in the 90s, we called ourselves traditional wives and mothers. And in hashtag land, we use #TradWife.

Marion: We are living in hashtag land, aren’t we? That’s a nice phrase. I love that. Yeah, good.

So, you were recruited to be part of what is known as the Quiverful Movement, as defined as a Christian evangelical movement that emphasizes having large families, rejecting contraception and promoting traditional gender roles, with a focus on male leadership and female submission. Started by Psalm 127, 5.

The title Quiverful comes from the belief that God will bless the man who has a lot of children, as in quote, he whose quiver is full of arrows. So let’s talk first, were there any benefits of being in the Quiverful Movement? And if so, what were they?

Tia: Oh, many. It’s important to underscore that these were all means to an end. All of those behaviors and practices, the idea of having a lot of children, the top down power structure, the entire environment was intended to make us happier families with better marriages so that we could have a Christian nation and have dominion over the globe. The Christian dominionist movement means that God has given Christians a mandate to rule everything. And the how they do that is through the lens of the family.

So, all of these things are just a way to raise a Christian army for God, have this family integrity and the societal integrity of the family unit, and then getting everyone to cooperate. That’s where we drill down on some of the power practices, disciplinary issues, health denial, things like that in order to make everybody fall into line.

Marion: Yeah. So, we have the reality right from the start of the book, right from the powerful opening scene that you leave. And all memoir asks and answers a question; all successful memoir does. You know, we either ask, “Can I sober up?” Or “What have the 12 dogs in my life taught me that I could not teach myself?”

To me, your remarkable book, A Well-Trained Wife, portrays the answer to the question of what happens when someone chooses herself. It’s a solid universal question, meaning that any person who wants to watch someone else choose themselves can witness that transcendent change in your pages. But that’s me. That’s what I read in your intent. Talk to me about building out a book from whatever question you asked yourself to set this book in motion.

Tia: It really started with what happened to me.

My book began as therapeutic journals. It took me about 10 years to write. And in the beginning, even though I had always been a hobby writer and I wanted to write a book, I was never going to write a memoir. That was not what I was going to do.

I was going to write fiction. I had a YA trilogy underway at the time I started this. And I was in trauma therapy trying to sort apart what I had been through and how it was impacting my life in the current moment.

And so, in the beginning, it was just articulating what happened, what my experiences were, and using the proper names for these experiences because I didn’t know what to call many of the things that had happened.

And so, using, for example, I’ll use the word “rape.” I didn’t know what had happened to me with rape. And once I called it that, it changed the perspective of how it formed me and how that was still manifesting in my life five, six, seven, 10 years later. Through the course of that 10-year period, the book became a novel. I had to fictionalize it and to externalize the story a bit.

And then I thought I would write a memoir with a pseudonym that didn’t work for promotional methods. And then I got to a place in my trauma healing where I was ready to tell my story in my own name as my own truth and as a memoir.

And so then the questions and the inquiry really took on a more probing nature because I really wanted to tell the story of how I’d lost my voice and found it, how I’d gotten into this mess and out of it, and also how I’d been able to change my mind because I didn’t think I could leave. And then there was something, a series of some things that led me to believe that, yeah, I can leave. And this is what it looks like when somebody tries to leave such a high control environment.

Marion: The evolution to that person that you are as a writer is so telling about something, about what happens when we get our hands on our stories. Do you have a sense of that moment when you felt that the control of your tale was yours? Do you have a sense of when that was? Do you have a memory of that inkling that if I got my hands on this, I could do X with it?

Tia: Yeah, actually, no one’s ever asked it that particular way. And it brings me to my dining room shortly after the 2016 election. And I was devastated. I was about mid process in the book at this time. And I realized that what had happened to me and the environment that I lived in was coming for the country in a very visceral way. And I knew suddenly that the mantle that I carried was not just my own story, but that I was an insider who could tell people what it’s really like to live in a high control Christian nationalist environment.

And I knew I was in an extreme minority of people who had done the work in order to tell the story without re-traumatizing themselves. Many women either don’t survive or they don’t survive well enough to be able to tell.

And in my case, I could write and I knew I could write. I knew I could write like fire. And so I, I felt myself stepping into this role of “You will tell this story and you will tell and translate how what’s happening out in the wider world,” why it matters and how it manifests in families.

From that point on, it really wasn’t the same. I wasn’t the same. The storytelling wasn’t the same, how I handled the work and what I went after as far as like wide distribution with a major publisher. That was a decision I made after that point.

Marion: So let’s talk about that a little more about writing into the space and time in which we live. That was a remarkable answer that that 2016 moment gave you an understanding of why now, every publisher. Everybody working on an op-ed pages of The New York Times or any place else has two questions when they get a submission, why this writer, why now?

And so clearly you understood the time you have written that you believe. And as you just said, that how the fundamentalists run their homes is how they want to run the country. And that’s why it’s vital to understand what it’s really like to live this way, but that doesn’t make it comfortable. That just makes it timely. That doesn’t make authority that first question, “Why this writer?”

So talk to me a little bit about, you’ve got the time established. It’s now, but talk to me a little bit about your authority and growing into that authority.

Tia: I knew that I had experienced something in a way that many people would be able to relate to. I wasn’t born into this. I didn’t have it overtly thrust on me as it’s like final manifestation. It evolved slowly over time.

And it was very much like the frog in the boiling water and grooming. I could see the stages of grooming and the stages of acceptance. And so many times I got advice to start the story at the point of my marriage.

And I knew very intuitively that if I started with my marriage, the first question would be, well, “Why did you marry him? What would produce this decision in you? Why would you stay with someone who is already hurting you? And why would you stay in this high control religious environment where your faith was not really comforting you or helping you be the best person you can be?”

And there are answers to all of those questions.

When people get involved in fundamentalism, they’re doing it to solve very basic, relatable problems. And I wanted to humanize the people who get caught up in this because our country is getting caught up in this. And we’re all people who want very similar things. We want happy families. We want good marriages. We want our children to be safe. Even if we’re looking backwards and we think we can simplify time by going back in time and against progress, we’re still looking for solutions to the pain of the human experience.

And so, I wanted to tell it in a way that would make me feel like a relatable character. People would understand. They would be able to see in their own lives how they had touched this movement. And with only a very few different turns in their lives, it might have had the same result, basically.

What I had experienced wasn’t fringe. It’s not fringe and it’s not uncommon. It’s just very uncommon for people to talk about it. And for whatever reason, I was born this very bold, redheaded, stubborn street child. And the more I tap into her, the more it’s like, “Well, I can say it.” I can say the blunt thing that happened. That’s not a problem for me.

And I used to get in a lot of trouble for that. And now it’s become my greatest strength.

Marion: Yeah, I wrote a book about redheads. And I know about that, having been one all my life. And it’s always, you’re too young to remember the commercial where “Let’s get Mikey to eat it.”

But, you know…

Tia: I remember it.

Marion: Okay, there you go. For me, it was always “Let’s get Marion to say it. Marion will say it. Let’s get Marion to do it.” Because it’s expected of the redhead that we’re going to be subversive.

In fact, all my research on redheads has so many subversive characters in history being painted as redheads.

So, subversive is the word that we have to talk about a little bit. Let’s drill into it a little bit. At the tagline of your Substack columns, you write that you believe in quote, “Subversive hope.” Yes. That’s a great phrase. What does it mean?

Tia: It means that you can shake things up and still be an optimist.

Marion: I love that. We’re going to get that tattooed. I am. That’s it: “Subversive hope.”

Tia: Talking about these things is disruptive. It makes people uncomfortable. It goes into rooms they’d rather sometimes keep closed. And I believe that we have to talk about it.

So when we shake it up, that doesn’t mean that we’re shedding positivity or a good outlook. I believe in a protopian society that can continue to evolve and improve. I don’t think we get there unless we’re honest about where we’re from. And so that’s always the thing I’m trying to search for in my work is humanity and subversive hope.

Marion: Yeah. And the idea of writing about change is complicated. I work with writers all day long. And the idea of changing one’s life is a lovely thing to contemplate. But on the page, it’s built one small phrase to one longer sentence that are curated from our backstory.

And it’s difficult too, it’s like a pointillistic painting. And you do this one word at a time, of course, because that’s what writing requires.

But I’m thinking particularly on page 23, when you write that what defines you at 14, you say, quote, “Sunday after Sunday, I sat in the pew, crossed my legs at the ankle and opened my Bible, leaning into the convenience of wanting what they wanted for me.”

It’s that word “convenience” that begins to tilt the reader’s head into the right position to watch you ultimately choose yourself.

So, I would like you to talk about the job of a writer writing into change when she’s already changed, right? How do you go back and populate the text with the language of transition when you’ve already transitioned?

Tia: That’s a great question. I really drew on my skills as an empath.

I am able to step into someone else’s experience and see it from their eyes. And I had to do that with younger me when I was writing over and over again, meditative sessions to sit and get back inside of myself using the tools that I had at that time.

What was I seeing, feeling, doing? What was my rationale? I wanted the reader to feel like they were in each season with me and so that they could see and feel. I didn’t want to have a lot of hindsight value. That was something my editor and I discussed at length, actually, because a lot of memoirs will have this wisdom come through from the future into the past. And I wanted to reduce that as much as I could and get away with it because I didn’t have that older wisdom. I didn’t have that perspective when I was in it.

And I wanted the reader to feel this evolution with me. So yeah, using my power of empathy, intuition, I have a keen memory and a lot of journaling, a lot of footprint. So yeah, it was kind of a lot of world building.

Marion: I’m fascinated by the idea of meditation in this role, getting back in touch with the person we were once is complex and interesting. Not knowing what you know now is one of the requirements of memoir. Choosing who’s going to write this book is an extraordinary obligation on the part of the writer. And so is the assignment.

So I always ask this question when I have a memoir writer on. So I have to ask you, what are we asking a memoir writer to do when we ask her to go back into trauma? Are we asking her to reanimate it? Are we asking her to relive it? Are we asking her to stand coolly back and report on it from here?

Tia: I mean, for me, I think it was all of the above. I think it’s important to mention that I was also doing internal family systems parts work in tandem in writing this manuscript.

I was getting in touch with all of those parts and I carry them with me today. They’re all like I am the sum of all my parts. So going into those versions of myself and letting them have their say, letting them tell their truth, letting them show up in ways they had not been able to do at the time. Sure, I relived it, but I relived it with a multifaceted perspective. For the first time, those parts were not alone in that experience because all of our parts were together. I was there.

My self-energy was in the space and taking their dictation. And now it’s a remarkable experience when people read your story and they go into those rooms with you, and I don’t feel like I was in those spaces alone at all anymore. I have all of these witnesses who lived those things with me. So yeah, I don’t know if that’s the right answer or not, but for me, I think I related to every option you laid out there.

Marion: That’s a damn good answer. It’ll do till the next answer comes along, for sure.

So, you’re what we call a multi-platform writer. You have a website, a book, a podcast, a Substack and more. Your second book, The Soul of Healing, A Survivor’s Guide to Recovery After Religious Trauma comes out in early 2026.

Your first book is what we call an “instant best seller.” It hit the market and hit the best sellers list. So, speak to the writers listening, all of whom just fainted right onto the floor at the very idea of maintaining such a platform, and talk about building that platform, building that brand and what you know about the essential pieces to utilizing that brand to get your voice out into the world.

Tia: Oh, this I love this question. The comical word in that whole description is “instant.” There was nothing instant about it.

Marion: Right. Overnight success.

Tia: So, some background. The whole time I was writing that 10-year memoir, I was building a social media platform. And when I say building the platform, it didn’t have a niche yet. It was just me getting to know social media tools. I have a background in marketing.

All of this is self-taught. I don’t have a college education. I’m an autodidact across the board. And so, I was bringing everything that I was learning in my ongoing life, you know, to the platforms.

I owe so much of my survival to the internet and to public education and to resources, open-source resources. And so, I was living this as I was doing this. And the parallel here with having a timely memoir is that it’s relevant in this wider conversation that we have online. And so, I was tapping into that.

As soon as I started making reels, which reels were new to social media in the 2020-21 era, my social media platform exploded. But it didn’t start from scratch. Like, there was a foundation there to do that. The platform led to the Amazon deal, which wasn’t a financial deal for me. It was just exposure. But it gave my platform some gravitas that I didn’t have as a byline writer or as an academic. I, you know, I’m a debut coming from nowhere. So “Shiny Happy People” gave me a footprint. And then that led to my agent. And then that led to selling the book. And then I was just very strategic between my book deal advances, you know, which aren’t a lot once you spread them over three years. But you couple that with a social media income, which also isn’t a lot.

And somehow you piecemeal the ability to make this your full-time job. And so I made education around Christian fundamentalism and the way that it’s impacting our culture, my niche, my zeitgeist. That is the thing that is bringing us together. That’s why my work is timely. It dovetails into the ex-evangelical movement and the disenchantment people are having with high control religion. And so, it just all came together so that this can sustain enough of a life. You know, I’m not wealthy, but I’m enough.

Marion: You are absolutely enough. And memoir has consequences, no matter what, even if the consequences are merely that your siblings say, “It didn’t happen like that.” And that can be a very simple experience. Christmas 2022, you got a bicycle and your sister didn’t. So, it was the worst Christmas of her life, but the best Christmas of yours.

It’s usually more complicated than that. But the consequences of memoir are all around us as memoir writers, and they can also be extreme. So where, in terms of your life, have you landed in terms of the pushback that you’ve gotten and how you’ve weathered it?

Tia: Oh, this is a surprise for people, but I get very little pushback. My consequences have all been, by and large, very positive.

The response from the survivor community has been massive. The people who want to understand what’s happening to their family members who have gone into the cult of Trump or the cult of high control religion, they don’t understand why they’re in there and how they think. So, they are grateful for my work because it translates those experiences for them. My own family has been very supportive of my writing career.They don’t want to engage with the actual content because they lived it, but there haven’t been any negative consequences. Not one.

Macmillan was super gracious with the wonderful legal edit. They did a phenomenal job with the legal edit. I have really good receipts for all legal concerns. And so there hasn’t been any negative consequence.

Marion: I’m so glad. And I think you’re reassuring so many people. The first question I get with every memoir writer I start with, and it’s usually whispered or it’s said through sobs, is “My sister has a different version of the same story. What do I do?”

But in your case, a large population of the country has a different version of your story. And so I’m delighted to know that your reception has been one of gratitude on the part of the recipients of your work.

Tia: I want to just add to that. I think that my experience is different in that none of that mattered to me. And I don’t mean to sound callous when I say that. I mean, I was telling this to own my truth and own my story. And I knew that we had different experiences growing up. We had different experiences coming from the church. And that wasn’t my job.

My job was my own story. I didn’t let anyone read it before I published it, except for the editorial team. And we just went for it.

Marion: You didn’t let anyone read it before you published it. I just want to put that on a t-shirt because I say to people all the time, your home people don’t have the qualifications to do this work.

Tia: That’s right.

Marion: Your friends don’t have the qualifications to do this work, especially if you’re a beginning, you know, starting out writer. You may, over the course of your life, develop great friendships with people who have the qualifications.

But what was the benefit to you of keeping in that single lane of reference merely and profoundly with your editorial team and not letting other people read it, do you think?

Tia: I have a life pattern of giving my narrative over to stronger voices. And this work was about taking that back.

Marion: Yeah. Listen to that. Right down to the actual day-to-day typing was on brand for you and this transformation. And just to further talk about brand, as I read through your work, your Substack, listen to the podcast, I read the book, I genuinely feel it percolates up this beautiful message that you believe we can heal.

And God, that is a welcome message. Goodness gracious, that’s a great message.

So let’s reverse engineer this a bit for those listening. I talk to writers all day long, and I promise you next week I’ll spend half my time fending off the objections of many writers who say, “Yeah, but Tia Levings had a big story. I don’t have a big story.”

And I will say what I always say, which is that memoir is not a plot driven genre. It’s an argument driven genre. And with an argument like you can heal, you’re speaking to a universal audience about that drawing from your personal tale.

But what would you say to people who say, I don’t have a big story?

Tia: You have your story. It’s the story of your life. It’s how much bigger does it need to be? First and foremost, it’s your own personal narrative. And in that lens, it doesn’t matter who else it touches or how big it is. This is your own freedom.

When I told my book, my story in book format, and it existed outside of me in a book, and then as an audiophile told in my own voice, I no longer had to carry it inside of me. And so, I was greatly unburdened.

And that didn’t have to do with the size of the story that had to do with my courage to tell it. So if you’re ruminating on something enough to write it, that’s big enough.

Marion: That’s such a generous answer. So, as we wrap this up, I want to bring in your podcast. It’s a fine podcast. It’s called “The Working Writer,” for which I will put a link in the transcript.

The tagline for that podcast is, quote, The Working Writer explores the many ways there are to make a sustainable living with words, featuring interviews with authors, agents, and publishing professionals across the country.

 So, what do other writers and publishing pros teach you?

Tia: This is a very diverse experience. There are as many ways to make a living as a writer as there are people. Your path will be your own. You will probably make some kind of hodgepodge patchwork out of it in today’s economy.

I don’t think that’s going to change. I think that’s going to increase, but we are who we are and our stories matter. And I hope to bring that plan to my little podcast.

It’s a project that always gets the backseat. There’s always something bigger in front of it. I’m always trying to hobble that thing along, but I feel like it’s a really important part of my literary citizenship to represent the actual path and struggle it takes to get here.

Marion: Well, your literary citizenship is something that we celebrate. Thank you, Tia. This has been a generous and lovely conversation and I’m deeply grateful for the book.

Tia: Thank you so much.

Marion: You’re so welcome. The author is Tia Levings, whose book, A Well-Trained Wife, is just out from St. Martin’s Press. Get it wherever books are sold. See more on her at tialevings dot com. Follow her on Instagram at tialevingswriter. See her Substack, Deconstructing Fundamentalism with Tia Levings. I’m Marion Roach Smith and you’ve been listening to QWERTY. QWERTY is produced by Overt Studios in Albany, New York. Reach them at overtstudios dot com. Our producer is Jacqueline Mignot. Our assistant is Lorna Bailey. Want more on the art and work of writing? Visit Marion roach dot com, the home of The Memoir Project, where writers get their needs met through online classes on how to write memoir. And thanks for listening. Don’t forget to follow QWERTY wherever you get your podcasts and listen to it wherever you go. And if you like what you hear, please leave us a review. It helps others to find their way to their writing lives.

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