Description

What do we do with the debris after the total collapse of a belief system? How do we feel less alone in the harrowing ordeal of reconstructing an identity? Four creators share how they turned to storytelling as a vital mechanism to process religious trauma, heal from new and inherited wounds, break free from shame, and begin to thrive in a world of endless (often terrifying) possibilities.

Hear about the turning points that inspired Kyton Dana’s cinematic documentaries, Nicole Hardy’s viral Modern Love essay and the book that followed, AJ Romriell’s award-winning memoir, and Jennifer Warnick’s two-woman storytelling show. Find out what prompted each of them to speak after decades of being silenced, how they overcame the fear of going public, and how it felt to begin the deliberate, exhilarating process of moving toward true fulfillment.

Each participant will share a brief excerpt of their work and discuss how the act of creation allowed them to stop being characters in a pre-written script and finally become the authors of their own lives.

Nicole Hardy is the author of Confessions of a Latter-day Virgin (Grand Central Publishing 2013), a memoir described by Kirkus Reviews as “a searching, sensual celebration of one woman’s struggle for identity and autonomy.” She’s best known for her viral New York Times Modern Love essay, “Single Female Mormon Alone,” which explores the realities of her ‘unplanned celibacy,’ a requirement for all devout but unmarried Mormons. That essay was later featured on the Modern Love podcast and noted in Best American Essays. Nicole is co-writer of Crash Course, a two-woman storytelling show inspired by an airplane-themed LDS youth group activity that swept the nation in the ‘90s.

Kyson Dana is a designer, thinker, and creator of the YouTube channel Second Nature, where he produces cinematic documentaries exploring his departure from the LDS Church and his subsequent journey through deconstruction. His work, including films like The Dark Side of My Mormon Mission, examines the search for meaning, identity, and parenting in the wake of a collapsed religious worldview. Kyson was recently featured on the Mormon Stories Podcast discussing his religious mission in Russia and the lifelong psychological, spiritual, and physical consequences that followed.

AJ Romriell is the author of Wolf Act (University of Wisconsin Press, 2025),a book of linked personal essays that explore a childhood of hiding, a familial reckoning, a religious exodus from the Mormon church, and an effort to understand one’s life as worth saving—even when the meaning of the word “saving” must be reimagined. Wolf Act earned first prize in the Utah Original Writing Competition and was a finalist for the Writers’ League of Texas Manuscript Contest. He’s currently working on a collection of linked personal essays about video games, apocalypses, and his 2020 HIV diagnosis.

Jen Warnick is a former journalist who now works as a creative director and multimedia storyteller for very large companies. When she’s not hanging on for dear life in the rodeo of late-stage capitalism, she’s developing a series of essays and stories exploring growing up Mormon; learning to sin using the scientific method; coming out as queer; leaving Mormonism, writing her own obituary; skating for seven years as a Rat City Rollergirl; and much more. She’s co-writer of Crash Course, a two-woman storytelling show for audiences interested in: Mormonism, swashbuckling adventures, dinosaurs, gay stuff, Enya, awkward coming-of-age stories, feminism, sex, and wanting to be loved for exactly who you are