Eve Ettinger is the oldest of 9 children from a Quiverfull family. Born in California and raised in a cult in Virginia, they served Jesus by helping raise their younger siblings, teaching Sunday School, and praying daily that God would allow her to live and die for his glory.
A voracious reader, Eve began exploring far beyond the walls of their home through literature, and eventually found community through blogging about theology and collaborating on online magazines with other homeschoolers across the country.
When they left for college at 18 and started courting at age 19, cognitive dissonance set in and they began to question everything: how the Bible was taught and read (was literal 6 day creation even IN the Bible?), how women were treated (why does The Handmaid’s Tale feel like real life?), and conservative Christian exceptionalism in America (why do white Christians think they are better than everyone else when they clearly are not?).
After getting married at 21 to escape their father’s control and emotionally abusive tactics, Eve found themself quickly outgrowing their old beliefs, eventually getting divorced at 23, and leaving the church. Since then they’ve been focused on healing, deconstructing and relearning everything they believed about themself and the world, and on exploring and adventuring, all the while writing about it in essays, poetry, fiction, and blogs.
They’ve written about divorce in the church for The Washington Post, about The Handmaid’s Tale and Quiverfull for The Establishment, among other outlets, and have blogged about leaving the cult at their own blog, and about being a homeschooled Peace Corps Volunteer for The Responsible Coalition for Home Education. They have been interviewed on or featured by: NPR’s Fresh Air, Cosmopolitan, Glamour UK, and Cracked.com.
Eve is currently working on a memoir. You can follow them on Twitter or support their work via Venmo.