Debby Schriver is a cult expert, an author, and a human rights activist whose projects connect us to common, core values that lift the human spirit. A native of Chicago, Schriver earned undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her study of psychological and sociological development began in college and has been an integral part of her career as an educator at UT (Associate Dean of Student Conduct and Orientation and Manager of Employee Training and Organizational Development) and as a writer.

Schriver’s focus on the area of child development began in her work with the Foster Care Review Board to which she was appointed by the Knox County Juvenile Court. There she worked with a community focused on serving the needs of at-risk youth: lawyers, social workers, and foster parents.
A similar group of caring professionals have been essential in informing Debby’s work on her book Whispering in the Daylight, The Children of Tony Alamo Christian Ministries and their Journey to Freedom. Alamo’s story is part of an upcoming Sundance TV docuseries “Ministry of Evil: The Twisted Cult of Tony Alamo,” produced by NBC Peacock Productions and World of Wonder Productions, in which Schriver appears as an Alamo expert. Her book is forthcoming from the University of Tennessee Press in April 2018.

Schriver’s previous books include In the Footsteps of Champions: The University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers, the First Three Decades; To Read My Heart: The Journal of Rachel Van Dyke, 1810–1811 (co-editor); and Ice ’n’ Go: Score in Sports and Life (co-author). She lives in Knoxville, Tennessee with her husband. ​​

Debby is the Author of Whispering in the Day Light.

Access to cultic life and how it’s perpetrated like never before.

“What is new about this book is that it describes the journey of second-generation former cult members (SGAs) who were rescued from the cult as children or teenagers . . . The section on the interviews with the children in which they described their own post-cult growth was incredibly interesting. Gaining insight into the lives of these children while they were in the cult and after they left has not been done before in this way. I appreciated this new approach to information in the cult field.”

—Lorna Goldberg L.C.S.W., Psy.A.
Director, Institute for Psychoanalytic Studies
Past President, International Cultic Studies Association