Cult Memoir Schedule: What’s Coming in 2025
An update on my upcoming memoir about family, faith, a doomsday cult, and a journey across America.
First of all, I want to say thank you. Your support has helped me push through writer’s block and reminded me that I’m not just writing for myself. I’ve been hard at work shaping several pieces that I’m finally ready to share over the coming weeks.
If you’re not aware: I’m writing a memoir about my family’s involvement in a doomsday cult in 1980s Arizona, and my own search for understanding and closure decades later—including a 19-day walk from Santa Cruz to Los Angeles, ending with a final confrontation in 2012.
I’ll be publishing two chapters per month, with each chapter potentially split into 1–3 posts depending on length. I’m aiming for 1,000–2,000 words per post to keep things readable. These posts will essentially form draft one of the full piece. At the given pace, I expect this draft to take me about a year to write and post here. So buckle in.
Because the story weaves together family history, the cult’s background, a physical and emotional journey, I’ll be telling it in a braided narrative style—switching between timelines and threads. For example, you’ll read about two days of the walk, then a chapter on the past, then return to the walk for two more days, and so on. It will all come together in the end.
Here’s what the publishing schedule looks like for the rest of the year:
⸻
July
The Farm, Pt. 3
The Farm, Pt. 4
August
The Walk, Day 1
The Walk, Day 2
September
Family
The Walk, Day 3
October
The Walk, Day 4
The Cult, Pt. 1
November
The Walk, Day 5
The Walk, Day 6
December
The Death
The Walk, Day 7
⸻
This memoir will be available to paid subscribers only. If you’d like to support my work and follow the story through to the end, please consider upgrading. Free subscribers will still have access to my beer essays and more casual writing. You’ll be able to preview one full post of the memoir, and I’ll be sharing The Walk, Day 1 with all subscribers as a thank-you.
The Farm, pt. 3 is coming this week, and pt. 4 will be out by the end of July. Subscribe now to make sure you don’t miss out.
Again, thank you—whether you’re supporting as a paid subscriber or you’re a more casual reader of my beer content. I’m excited to share my writing with you.
Best,
Ben