Deirdre Sugiuchi recently finished her captivity narrative Unreformed, which is about how, despite being imprisoned in a white evangelical reform school in the Dominican Republic as an adolescent, she survived and thrived. She’s also exploring the history of white supremacist violence in a project called Two Mississippi. Her 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. She also recently was a finalist in the 2025 International Voices in Creative Nonfiction Competition. Sugiuchi is an assistant editor at The Rumpus, a contributing writer at Electric Literature, a co-founder of Athens, Georgia’s New Town Revue music and literature series, and until recently served as a public school librarian. Find her on Instagram and Substack.
Publications
Interviews by Sugiuchi
In “The Barn,” Wright Thompson Excavates the Cover Up of Emmett Till’s Murder
noam keim Reckons With Their Family History of Settler Colonialism in “The Land Is Holy”
In “Devout,” Anna Gazmarian Reconciles a Bipolar Diagnosis With Her Evangelical Faith
Videos
Str8 Outta BS Podcast Interview with Deirdre Sugiuchi
Exciting news—I was recently a guest on the Str8 Outta BS podcast, hosted by Jordan (Lucipurr Morningstar), a fellow survivor of the troubled teen industry. During our conversation, Jordan and I discussed my time in the troubled teen industry, which I wrote about in my recently completed memoir, Unreformed, a Captivity Narrative.
Appearances
There are no upcoming events.
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