Deirdre Sugiuchi spent her adolescence in a white evangelical reform school in the Dominican Republic with strong Project 2025 vibes. Her memoir, Unreformed: A Captivity Narrative, which is about how she survived and thrived despite being imprisoned, was a finalist in the 2025 Vine Leaves Press International Voices in Creative Nonfiction Competition. It will be published in 2027. She’s also exploring the history of white supremacist violence in a project called Two Mississippi. Sugiuchi’s essays and excerpts have been featured in Action, Spectacle, Literary Hub, Midwest Review, Salon, the anthology Empty the Pews: Stories of Leaving  the Church, and other places. The Albee Foundation, the Hambidge Center, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Wildacres have all supported her work. She’s received the Key West Writers Seminar Teacher and Librarian Award, the Mark Austin Segura Award for Nonfiction, and a 2023 Deming Award for feminist nonfiction. Sugiuchi is an assistant editor at The Rumpus, a contributing writer at Electric Literature, where she’s interviewed dozens of writers, a co-founder and curator of Athens, Georgia’s New Town Revue music and literature series, and a fitness instructor. Until recently served as a public school librarian. Find her on Bluesky,  Instagram and Substack.