Most children would be praised for writing stories. Not Taylor Stevens. Aged 41, Stevens was born and raised in a cult then known as the Children of God, whose members (a term Stevens dislikes since it implies she had a choice) lived communally, usually in squalid poverty, surviving by begging. Children were often beaten, starved, separated from their parents, denied education and sexually abused.
Stevensâ??s sporadic schooling ended for good when she was 12, but she always had a compulsion to tell stories. â??All entertainment â?? music, television, books â?? was banned. We were so bored, I used to make up stories to tell the other teenagers when we were sitting for hours in the back of a van being driven to go beg somewhere,â? she recalls. â??Imagination was my survival mechanism.â?
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