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WORK TITLE: Sin Bravely
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://maggieroweauthor.com/
CITY: Los Angeles
STATE: CA
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://softskull.com/dd-product/sin-bravely/ * http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1770543/ * http://www.npr.org/2017/01/07/508668037/a-memoir-of-taking-christianity-to-the-extreme * https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jan/10/maggie-rowe-interview-memoir-sin-bravely-evangelicals
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: no2012016414
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/no2012016414
HEADING: Rowe, Maggie
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PERSONAL
Grew up in Chicago. Married. Lives in Los Angeles with husband, writer Jim Vallely, and their dog.
EDUCATION:Cornell, B.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. “Arrested Development” and “Flaked,” writer. Comedy Central stage show “sitnspin,” performer and producer, 2002-present.“Bright Day” mockumentary, screenplay cowriter and director. “Hollywood Hellhouse” and “Hollywood Purity Ball,” creator. Acted in “Fun with Dick and Jane,” 2005; “Oceans Thirteen,” 2007; and “Miles to Go,” 2012.
AVOCATIONS:Studied meditation at the Himalayan Institute, Honesdale, PA. The Zen Center of Los Angeles, attendee; Against the Stream, attendee.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Maggie Rowe is a comedy writer living in Los Angeles. Rowe grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, where she was raised attending church with her parents. Rowe became involved in theater in high school. Following college at Cornell, she began working in film, starting her career with acting roles in films including “Fun with Dick and Jane,” 2005; “Oceans Thirteen,” 2007; and “Miles to Go,” 2012.
She then moved onto screenwriting, contributing to shows such as “Arrested Development” and “Flaked.” After years of performance involvement with Comedy Central’s stage show, “sitnspin,” Rower took over as producer in 2002. She is the creator of the theatrical satires, “Hollywood Hellhouse” and “Hollywood Purity Ball.” Rowe lives in Los Angeles with her husband, writer Jim Vallely, and their dog. Sin Bravely: A Memoir of Spiritual Disobedience is Rowe’s first book.
Sin Bravely
Sin Bravely is a memoir documenting Rowe’s turbulent relationship with the Christian faith. The book opens in Rowe’s childhood, when she understood from an early age that she wanted desperately to do all necessary to avoid going to hell. This entailed spending hours studying and memorizing the bible, dedicating herself to Jesus, and attempting to convert friends. However, despite her deep desire to accept Jesus as her savior, Rowe developed anxiety around the question of whether her efforts were good enough to make her a true believer and save her from hell.
This anxiety grew in college, as Rowe began to date and experiment with drugs and alcohol. Rowe’s anxieties culminated in a nervous breakdown she experienced while watching Akira Kurosawa’s magical realism film, “Dreams.” She returned home for the summer, still plagued by religious fears. Her parents became concerned when Rowe found herself unable to eat due to her anxiety. The three decided to check Rowe into Grace Point, an evangelical psychiatric institute. The book then documents Rowe’s three month stint at Grace Point, where she describes a varied cast of characters who influenced her time at the institute.
Kim Kelly in Guardian wrote, “it takes a light hand to keep such serious subject matter from sinking into the doldrums, but Rowe deftly juxtaposes dark humor with raw emotion without ever yanking the reader out of the story.” At Grace Point Rowe is diagnosed with “scrupulosity” and struggles to find a counselor she trusts. Eventually she agrees to begin antidepressants, and through humor and support is able to find her way out of debilitating religious anxiety.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
America, January 23, 2017, Maurice Timothy Reidy, “An Evangelical Pilgrimage in Reverse,” review of Sin Bravely: A Memoir of Spiritual Disobedience, p. 55.
Booklist, December 1, 2016, Christine Engel, review of Sin Bravely, p. 4.
Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2016, review of Sin Bravely.
Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2016, review of Sin Bravely.
Publishers Weekly, November 14, 2016, review of Sin Bravely, p. 50.
ONLINE
Christian Century, https://www.christiancentury.org (April 20, 2017), Ted Peters, review of Sin Bravely.
Foreword Reviews, https://www.forewordreviews.com (May 27, 2017), Bradley A. Scott, review of Sin Bravely.
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Maggie Rowe on how she escaped from evangelical hell
In a blistering new memoir, the comedy writer recalls her youth as an obsessive-compulsive believer and how she ended up in a strip club
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‘I did not want to see a traditional therapist because I figured they would try to dissuade me from a belief in hell, that they’d tell me the whole thing was a fairytale.’ Photograph: Douglas Sacha/Getty Images
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Tuesday 10 January 2017 15.36 EST Last modified on Tuesday 2 May 2017 13.30 EDT
Maggie Rowe’s dark, funny new memoir, Sin Bravely (subtitle: My Great Escape From Evangelical Hell), opens under the watchful gaze of a shifty-eyed Jesus. As she sits with her mother in the waiting room of the Christian mental health rehabilitation center, the author – then 19 – glares up at the painting, suspicious of the Nazarene’s serene expression. She knew his perfect love could curdle into indifferent cruelty in an instant, and that she could be cast aside, damned for eternity, on a whim. Rowe was filled with doubt, even as she awaited her admittance into Grace Point Evangelical Psychiatric Institute – a last-ditch effort to curb the obsessively pious Born Again Christian’s all-consuming worries about going to hell.
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“I did not want to see a traditional therapist because I figured they would try to dissuade me from a belief in hell, that they’d tell me the whole thing was a fairytale or opiate and that seemed incredibly dangerous,” Rowe explained. “I needed someone to work within my belief system, so I was really happy when my parents found Grace Point for me.”
Raised in the Evangelical Christian church, Rowe was always a believer. Even as a child, Rowe found herself consumed by worry over whether she truly had been saved, and whether her acceptance of Jesus Christ had “stuck”. She’d said the words, but what if she hadn’t really meant them? What if she hadn’t meant them enough? She lugged around a massive Bible, memorizing lines of Scripture the way other kids memorize baseball stats, but as her familiarity with it grew, so did her fears of inadequacy.
Her parents encouraged her to get baptized at age nine, hoping to quell some of her fears about really being saved, but the ceremony only served to exacerbate her worry. Plagued with recurring thoughts about eternal damnation, Rowe sought answers from her local pastor, who seemed overwhelmed by the little girl’s questions and left her feeling even more anxious. As she grew older, she struggled to balance her religious morals with the temptations and realities of American youth; when she left for college, the worry went along with her. Even as she rationalized experimenting with drinking and sex, her old fears refused to let go. After a trying sophomore year, her parents checked her into the Grace Point for the summer, where the bulk of Sin Bravely’s narrative takes place.
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There, Rowe introduces us to a curious cast of characters – one might say “colorful” (especially in the case of the perpetually irate, reformed biker who found Jesus after dropping a hellish mixture of angel dust and crack) but overall, the personalities she encounters are painted in sad, anxious shades of black and grey. Grace Point is not a happy place, despite the forced cheerfulness of its employees; the friendships Rowe forms during her time there feel rare and precious, glimmers of light in the fog of meetings, therapy and the misguided exclamations of her dangerously clueless counselor, Bethanie.
The smug, saccharine Bethanie – the closest thing to an outright villain found in Sin Bravely – constantly tries to force wildly inaccurate diagnoses on Rowe for the sake of what seems like convenience, if not outright ignorance. Group therapy sessions with her were a nightmare, as she steamrolled discussions and thundered against what she saw as heretical ideas, even when her tactics worked to the detriment of her patients. Rowe saw her as both an adversary and an almost pathetic figure, one with whom she locks horns more than once.
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“Bethanie was one of those people that you encounter in all walks of life who lacks a healthy skepticism of her own opinions, who is really sold on her own ideas,” Rowe reflects. That attitude is especially dangerous in mental health. My bumper sticker is “Don’t believe everything you think.”
It takes a light hand to keep such serious subject matter from sinking into the doldrums, but Rowe deftly juxtaposes dark humor with raw emotion without ever yanking the reader out of the story.
“I really worked to keep it in the 19-year-old voice and not jump into my perspective now. When I was going through earlier drafts I would try to catch moments where the voice slipped into my current one, where it would be a little too wry, a little too confident or certain or calm,” Rowe explains. “It helped that I had two giant notebooks from the time I was there where I journaled about every bit of the experience. I also saved folders of handouts from the different therapists that I took notes on, so I had a lot of help in remembering what I was like then and how I thought.”
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The book’s biggest breakthrough moment comes near the end, when the center’s no-nonsense Dr Galvade diagnoses Rowe with a very specific kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Being able to put a name to the condition that’s dominated her life fills the author with hope, as does a phrase – “sin bravely”– offered up by Dr Benton, the psychiatrist who becomes her greatest ally at Grace Point.
“Using phrases or mantras to encourage and comfort myself has been a powerful practice for me. For years I would say to myself ‘Remember the purple sky’ when I was feeling anxious, which to me meant remember a sense of internal spaciousness and kindness toward myself,” says author Rowe. “There’s so much junk that goes on in my head, I think it’s important to add some friendliness to the mix.”
Martin Luther’s adage to “sin bravely in order that you may know the forgiveness of God” and Benton’s admonition to “ease off the Bible a little” dovetail to leave Rowe feeling very brave indeed. Her newfound comfort with the idea of being bad take her to a strip club – and on to the stage. Despite the power of her new mantra, Rowe’s night at Lookers ends in crisis.
“As the taste of blood seeps into my mouth, I think, ‘Dear God, I’ve done the same thing again. I’ve made the same mistake. What is wrong with me?’ The throbbing bass of the song “Centerfold” bangs in my ears. ‘My blood runs cold. My memory has just been sold.’ It’s loud. Too Loud. I press my earlobes over my eardrums. Was sinning bravely just an excuse to sin? My eyes smart from the dense smoky air, my contacts sticking to my eyes, my eyelids sticking to my contacts. The air and the volume are punishing. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say to God over the throbbing bass line banging into my head. ‘I’m sorry. I got it wrong.”
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Rowe’s younger self spends most of the book beating herself up, which her current counterpart draws on to deftly illustrate the panic, incessant anxiety, and rote repetition that accompanied her brand of obsessive compulsion. Young Maggie is a sympathetic character, and a frustrating one; it’s hard to resist the impulse to yell at this ghost girl to just snap out of it, to calm down, to stop fretting about hellfire and worry more about her homework – but that’s now how anxiety works, and to ignore that is to render the reader as crass and tone-deaf as the hated Bethanie.
Rowe navigates the tangle of her own messy emotions with a firm hand and an eye for detail. Poignant little moments abound, and some of the most interesting (and ironic) ones appear when she allows glimpses into the inner lives of her fellow Grace Pointers. The heart pulls towards wine-sipping Cindy with her doomed dreams of motherhood, and stone-faced art professor Dwayne, who’s only there on court orders and isn’t even that religious: “I’m no fan of born-agains, but they’re better than junkies.” Her motley crew could have easily veered into farce, but instead, became the most stable aspect of Rowe’s anxious summer.
Her time at Grace Point left a profound impact on her, and as Rowe tells it, was the catalyst for the next stage of her evolving relationship with spirituality and faith. “The experience began to dislodge my belief in a literal reading of the Bible. After that I began to visualize God differently, as a spirit of kindness,” she says. “There’s an Indigo Girls song that I used to sing to myself a lot: “He is only what is best in us, what’s decent and kind and right.” I began praying to a higher spirit within myself.”
Now married and working as a TV writer and actor in LA, Rowe seems to have found peace, as well as a healthy distance from the tumultuous period of her life we observe in Sin Bravely. She’s moved away from her born again beginnings, instead embracing meditation – and, at one point, starting a whole new religion called Pyrasphere, a satire on what has been called “prosperity theology”.
She’s come a long way from being that little girl with the big Bible and even bigger worries about hell, but hasn’t turned her back on the church entirely. Sin is just less of a concern than her overall wellbeing these days.
“I continued to suffer from anxiety and obsessive thoughts although the thoughts stopped centering on hell. I moved into an ashram called the Himalayan Institute after college and studied meditation, which made an enormous difference. Meditation helped to watch the thoughts and feelings come and go and not get caught up in their storms,” she explains. “Today, I regularly attend two Buddhist organizations, the Zen Center of Los Angeles and Against the Stream, but I also attend certain Christian functions. I try to cultivate a generous, kind spirit and am open to anything to help get me there.”
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AUTHOR INTERVIEWS
A Memoir Of Taking Christianity 'To The Extreme'
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January 7, 20178:08 AM ET
Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday
Comedy writer Maggie Rowe was 19 when she checked herself into an evangelical psychiatric facility. She says she had a fear of sin and eternal damnation. That's the focus of her memoir Sin Bravely.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Maggie Rowe has written a memoir about faith, doubt and yocks. "Sin Bravely: A Memoir Of Spiritual Disobedience" recounts the months that she spent in an evangelical psychiatric center when she was 19, an abiding Christian who worried that she just wasn't abiding enough. Maggie Rowe, who has produced and appeared in the Comedy Central stage show "Sit 'N' Spin" and is a screenwriter and satirist, including for the highly acclaimed show "Arrested Development," joins us now from the studios of NPR West. Thanks so much for being with us.
MAGGIE ROWE: Thank you for having me.
SIMON: First, let me get some of the obvious things out of the way. Are - in the comedy writers' rooms, are you the only one who can quote scripture?
ROWE: (Laughter) That's probably true, yes. And I still remember quite a bit of it. You know, there's a Bible verse that says if you etch the word of God onto a young child's mind, it will stay forever. And it's pretty true.
SIMON: You grew up in the Chicago suburbs.
ROWE: I did, yes.
SIMON: And what drew you to Christianity at such an early age? Because your parents were religious, but you really got religious.
ROWE: Right. My parents were wonderful Christians. They were religious, but they were not fanatical in any way. I was the one who took it to the extreme. I was told in Sunday school that you had to accept Jesus into your heart if you didn't want to go to hell. So of course I did that a thousand times. But the catch was you had to mean it with all of your heart. And that's a difficult figure to determine (laughter). There was a verse that said if you are luke warm rather than hot or cold, God will spit you out of his mouth on Judgment Day. And I felt like, I mean, I don't know. I'm lukewarm. I just want to watch "The Brady Bunch" and eat Suzy Q's (laughter). I'm not on fire for the Lord, so I tried to make myself generate this fire for the Lord.
SIMON: Yeah. Parallel to that, in high school and then in college, how did theater fit into your spiritual life?
ROWE: Well, I worried about it. I only would do roles that I felt were pleasing or edifying to God because I felt that if I did something that, you know, reflected badly on God then it would reflect badly on me on Judgment Day.
SIMON: Yeah. But theater is often where the most irreverent students wind up.
ROWE: Yeah. So I was an oddball in that community, and, you know, my friends would go to parties and they would drink and they would swear. Like, even swearing, that seemed to me like it'd be so great if I could just say [expletive] like my friends. You know, I wanted to be a normal kid, but I had the pressure of my eternal destiny weighing down on me.
SIMON: You went off to Cornell and had - well, I'll refer to it as a spiritual crisis and maybe it was a personal crisis.
ROWE: Yeah, it was both. When I went to college, I was so focused on this new experience of my life that I really just pushed down all of my fears of hell and damnation. And then I went to see this film. It's Akira Kurosawa's "Dreams," this Japanese art flick. And as I was watching it, it had these images of retribution. There's a young boy who disobeys his mother, and so his mother gives him a sword to drive into his stomach. And all of these images just served to bring all of this repressed material to the surface. And I heard this screaming in the theater, and then realized it was coming from my mouth (laughter). And three months later, I checked myself into an evangelical psychiatric facility. Their slogan was psychiatry where the Bible comes first. So that creates a little bit of a conflict sometimes.
SIMON: You had some differences with Bethanie in particular.
ROWE: Yes, yes. So Bethanie was the first woman I met when I was there, and she was one of these Christians that supposedly really wanted to help, but what she was actually doing was far from it. I had told her that I would get so upset about my eternal destiny that I would vomit. I was just so nauseous. It was - I just felt terrible. And what she said to me was, oh, you look in the mirror and you see someone who you think is fat and I was like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not worried - the last thing I'm worried about is my weight. I'm not (laughter) like it would be - but she had determined that I had an eating disorder. And no matter what evidence I gave her to the contrary, she held on tight to that diagnosis.
SIMON: You were afraid of sin. I mean, you were afraid of burning.
ROWE: Yes, I was. And even if it wasn't a literal burn - because they would say that, they would say, oh, the fire is just a metaphor - but it was a metaphor for eternal suffering. But we're not crazy. We don't literally think it's burning (laughter).
SIMON: You learned a lot from the other people who were there, though, didn't you? I get that impression.
ROWE: I really did. I really did. And I mean, the one I learned the most from was I had a psychiatrist there who told me - it's the title of the book - but there's a doctrine called pecca fortiter, and it means brave sin. And Martin Luther coined the term, and basically the idea is that the most important thing is to understand God's forgiveness. And if you need to sin in order to do that, that's what you need to do. So my psychiatrist told me all these fears that you're having, it's drawing you further and further away from God. The best thing that you can do is to do exactly what you feel in your heart that you want to do. And, you know, first I objected. I was like, oh, I can't just sin. And he was like, well, what are you going to do? You're not going to - are you going to murder somebody, or are you going to put a gas bomb on a train? Like what - and his thing was follow what you intrinsically believe and then let the Bible follow, which was a pretty radical idea...
SIMON: Yeah.
ROWE: ...For me at the time.
SIMON: For a lot of people in show business, can't comedy be a kind of faith?
ROWE: Yes. And the ability to find even just, like, the absurdity of my situation, the fact that I - that it was a film. And I later read Kurosawa - there was a, you know, where he was talking about what he wanted the movie to evoke was fear of the afterlife (laughter).
SIMON: Oh my.
ROWE: So mission accomplished.
SIMON: Yeah, sounds like you're doing pretty well now.
ROWE: I think so. I think so. I'm - meditation was a big thing that really helped me out of this process, being able to sit with the fear and being able to say I don't know if I'm going to go to hell. That really was what I had to come to terms with. And it's a pretty horrible possibility, so it was a tough road to be able to accept that.
SIMON: Maggie Rowe - her book, "Sin Bravely." Thanks so much for being with us.
ROWE: Thank you for having me.
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ABOUT MAGGIE ROWE
For the last fifteen years, MAGGIE ROWE has performed in and produced the Comedy Central stage showsitnspin, Los Angeles’ longest running spoken word show, having taken over the reigns from creator Jill Soloway in 2002. She has written for Arrested Development and Flaked for Netflix. She co-wrote the screenplay for and directed the New Age religious mockumentary “Bright Day” and is the creator of the theatrical satires Hollywood Hellhouse and Hollywood Purity Ball. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, writer Jim Vallely.
Maggie Rowe
Biography
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Jump to: Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1)
Mini Bio (1)
Maggie Rowe is an actress and writer, known for Ocean's Thirteen (2007), Fun with Dick and Jane (2005) and Miles to Go (2012).
Spouse (1)
James Vallely (23 June 2001 - ?)
Mark Miller, Contributor
Humorist, Author, Journalist
Exclusive Interview with Writer/Performer/Sin Bravely Author Maggie Rowe
04/11/2017 01:27 am ET | Updated Apr 11, 2017
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF MAGGIE ROWE
Writer/Performer Maggie Rowe
For the last fifteen years, Maggie Rowe has performed in and produced the Comedy Central stage show sitnspin, Los Angeles’s longest running spoken-word show, having taken the reins from creator Jill Soloway in 2002. She has sold pilots to Disney, Nickelodeon, Showtime, and HBO; co-scribed the screenplay for the film Bright Day with Andersen Gabrych; and has written for Arrested Development and for Flaked for Netflix. Maggie is the creator of the faux religion Pyrasphere and the theatrical satires Hollywood Hellhouse and Hollywood Purity Ball. Her new book is Sin Bravely: A Memoir of Spiritual Disobedience.
How did sitnspin, the spoken word stage show you’ve produced for the past 15 years, come about?
Jill Soloway started sitnspin in 2001 and after I had performed regularly, Jill asked me to take over in 2002.
What prompted the decision to keep sitnspin a free show?
So few things are free in Los Angeles. I love being the exception. Plus, Comedy Central sponsors it and their model is for all shows to be free.
Who are some of the celebrity storytellers who’ve graced the sitnspin stage?
Bill Maher, Kevin Nealon, Jeff Ross, Doug Benson, Carol Leifer, Taylor Negron, Christine Lahti, Kate Walsh.
What is Pyrasphere, what form did it take, and how did it come about?
Pyrapshere began as a sketch for a variety show I produced called “A Pretty Good Show.” My partner, Andersen Gabrych, and I expanded it into a full-fledged faux-religion, including a list of 21 tenets, sacred symbols, testimonials, and even a clothing line. Many people believed it was a real thing and wanted to join. It was a satire of “prosperity theologies,” – like The Secret or the Christian version put forth by speakers like Joel Olsteen or Creflo Dollar.
What is Hollywood Hellhouse, what form did it take, and how did it come about?
Hollywood Hellhouse was a walk-thru haunted house using the exact script used by real Hell houses – a series of rooms young Christians walk through depicting various sins, including gay relationships, dancing at a rave, shooting innocent victims at a school, and having an abortion. The idea was to show the horror of the phenomenon by putting up the exact thing. It didn’t need any twisting or commentary for the audience to see why this event is so horrible. But with comedians playing the parts, it was fun in addition to being shocking.
What is the Hollywood Purity Ball, what form did it take, and how did it come about?
Similar to Hollywood Hellhouse, the aim was to show the pernicious nature of the purity ball phenomenon (the fetishizing of virginity and reduction of female worth to sexual innocence) through comedy and song.
You are a comedy writer and performer, married to another comedy writer and performer, Jim Vallely. Has that resulted in any conflict or competition in the relationship?
I am happy to see there really is no element of competition in our relationship. We are each other’s biggest fans.
How did the two of you meet?
We met at an after party of Politically Incorrect. Bill was interested in my best friend so he asked her to come to the after party. Then he called Jimmy to come be a wingman. Jimmy says Bill said the five words that changed his life: “You take the tall one.” Ha.
What are your success secrets to selling TV pilots to networks and studios?
I’ve been able to sell a number of pilots. Most have been based on my personal experience so basically my pitches have been like sitnspin pieces.
What prompted your decision to write Sin Bravely: A Memoir of Spiritual Disobedience, about your spiritual struggle with religion, at this point in your life?
I was finally, after many years, able to have enough distance from my early spiritual terror that I was able to reflect on it without sparking overwhelming anxiety.
What is the significance of your book’s title, “Sin Bravely”?
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The title comes from a Martin Luther quote: “Sin bravely in order to know the forgiveness of God.”
Why did you check yourself into an evangelical psychiatric facility at the age of 19?
This is a short simple answer: I was terrified of going to hell. I went to an evangelical facility because I felt if I went to a secular institution they would just say, “Hell’s bullshit. It’s a medieval concept using fear to control the masses.” And I was not at that point yet.
How would you describe your spiritual evolution in a nutshell?
My spiritual evolution I would describe as journey from literalism to figuratism. I now see all religious texts as pointing to an ineffable truth. I believe many people (including myself as a child) cling to the pointers to the truth and not the truth to which they are pointing.
Do you at all today worry about retribution for your sins?
A very small part of my psyche, the scared child part, still lives in me and is still frightened, but it is a very small part.
With your parents being so religious, what was it that caused you to have doubts or be less passionate about your religion?
My parents actually were not fanatical at all. They were and continue to be wonderful moderate-thinking Christians possessed of a genuine and admirable kindness. I was the one who became obsessed with religion– far more than they ever were. It was a perfect awful storm for my psyche of going to a literalist church, being a smart kid, and having OCD that caused my breakdown. Not any instruction from my parents.
How have your relatives reacted to your book?
My parents and my sister have been wonderful, demonstrating the giving nature of their true Christian faith.
What sorts of people did you hang out with in high school and college? Were there religious cliques there?
In high school and college, I did not have any Christian friends, except my best friend Sarah who I actually “brought to Jesus.”
What remains on your bucket list?
Going to Japan during cherry blossom season.
Anything you’re working on now that excites you?
I have a new book that I’m working on called “Easy Street” about my lingering OCD, my obsessive people pleasing, and my relationship with the 55 year old autistic woman I help take care of.
What are your hobbies and other interests besides writing and performing?
I am big time meditator, Eastern philosophy reader, and Kirtan chanter.
Your desert island choices for:
Movie: A Thousand Clowns
Play: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
TV show: Rectify
Book: The Wisdom of Insecurity - Alan Watts
Podcast: S Town
Poetry: Anne Sexton
Food: Chicago Deep Dish Pizza
Anyone in history for conversation: Alan Watts
Anyone in history, other than your spouse, for romance: Alan Watts
Where do you find your joy in life now?
My relationship with my husband and friends, meditation, reading, writing, and the hope that I will someday live in a state of peace and kindness.
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MAGGIE ROWE
I’m a writer/performer living in Los Angeles with my husband and dog. I started out as an actress (My IMDB profile) and then shifted my focus to writing. I’ve written screenplays for several films including (Bright Day! and Out West,) for television shows (Flaked and Arrested Development,) created stage productions (Hollywood Hell House, Hollywood Purity Ball, Lawyer Cop Doctors, and Pretty Good Show), edited a book of personal essays (Dirty Laundry,) and founded a religion (Pyrasphere.)
I’ve produced and regularly performed in the spoken word show sitnspin (created by Jill Soloway) at the Comedy Central stage for the last fourteen years. My memoir Sin Bravely: A Memoir of Spiritual Disobedience is being published by Softskull Press in January 2017.
Frequently Asked Questions
WAIT, WHAT? YOU FOUNDED A RELIGION? BACK UP.
Yes, it’s called Pyrasphere. It’s the perfect religion for anybody who has ever wanted something that they did not have.
IS IT FOR REAL? DO YOU HAVE FOLLOWERS? WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY A RELIGION?
There’s more about Pyrasphere on the Pyrasphere page of this site. Let’s move on.
THERE’S A LOT ABOUT RELIGION IN THAT UNDER 200 WORD BIO. WHAT’S UP WITH THAT?
I grew as an Evangelical Christian and struggled for years with the literalism of my childhood faith and fear of the afterlife. Then, at nineteen, I had a rather dramatic breakdown while watching a screening of Akiro Kurosawa’s films Dreams. After that I began a journey to find spirituality outside the confines of traditional religion.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY SPIRITUALITY?
Yeah, it’s a pretty soppy word. I should have come up with a better one. Basically I’m interested in the transformation of consciousness and experiencing the metaphors of religion. My favorite quote is “The mind makes a hell of a heaven and heaven of a hell.”
DID JOSEPH CAMPBELL SAY THAT?
No, Milton. The Joseph Campbell one is, “The gods, the heavens, the hells, they’re all inside us.” I like that one too.
YOU SAID YOU LIVE WITH YOUR DOG AND YOUR HUSBAND. WHAT KIND OF DOG?
She’s half Dachshund – half Labrador. I have fun imagining the logistics of her conception.
WHAT KIND OF HUSBAND?
A nice, funny one. Half German. Half Irish. I have less fun imagining the logistics of his beginning.
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Print Marked Items
An evangelical pilgrimage in reverse
Maurice Timothy Reidy
America.
216.2 (Jan. 23, 2017): p55.
COPYRIGHT 2017 America Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.
http://americamagazine.org/
Full Text:
Sin Bravely, by Maggie Rowe, is a memoir about a young evangelical Christian in desperate need of a good spiritual
director. The narrator and heroine is an aspiring actress who cannot be sure she has been saved, even though she has
accepted Jesus as her personal savior not once, but many, many times. Hers is a spiritual journey in reverse, one that
starts from a position of belief but then slowly seems to back away from it.
The catchy title comes from Martin Luther: "Sin bravely so that you may know the forgiveness of God." The subtitle is
tailored to our times: "A memoir of spiritual disobedience." The author is a comedian and screenwriter living in Los
Angeles looking back at her formative years. As a young girl, Rowe is thoughtful and precocious. She knows her Bible
and is intent on doing the right thing. But despite her best efforts, she cannot decide what constitutes a sin. In college,
she tries cursing, and then sleeping with her boyfriend, but her casual sinning leads to a nervous breakdown. She lands
in a Christian psychiatric facility, where she is eventually diagnosed with "scrupulosity" and, after some resistance,
agrees to take antidepressants.
It takes time for Rowe to find a trusted counselor. His advice sets her on an unexpected course, to "sin bravely," that
would not be out of place in a Graham Greene novel. But her insights, while hard won, can seem like weak tea. "What
if I didn't have to worry about the Bible?" she asks herself. "What if I could just trust my instincts, my innate sense of
good and bad?" Rowe is a winning narrator, and you can't help but root for her. But this reader was left wondering
whether a different kind of religious education, one that respected Maggie's intelligence but also emphasized
community and tradition, would have set her on a different path.
Maurice Timothy Reidy, executive editor; Twitter: @mtreidy.
Sin Bravely
A Memoir of Spiritual Disobedience
By Maggie Rowe
Soft Skull Press. 225p $16.95
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Reidy, Maurice Timothy. "An evangelical pilgrimage in reverse." America, 23 Jan. 2017, p. 55. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA479715407&it=r&asid=bc0b999e1e404bdba2c4b02bb69dec66.
Accessed 11 Aug. 2017.
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Sin Bravely: A Memoir of Spiritual Disobedience
Christine Engel
Booklist.
113.7 (Dec. 1, 2016): p4.
COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Sin Bravely: A Memoir of Spiritual Disobedience. By Maggie Rowe. Jan. 2017. 240p. Soft Skull, paper, $16.95
(9781593766597). 248.
Readers who have wrestled with self-doubt over the strength of their convictions will find a funny, frank companion in
this frantically compelling memoir. The author grows up Christian, but instead of feeling secure in her eternal salvation
is besieged by the anxiety of never knowing if she is really sincere enough. Readers will cringe in recognition of their
own awkwardly sincere teenage selves as she tries to secure her eternal destiny by proving her commitment to God.
The anxiety reaches a crescendo in college, and she heads to a Christian mental-health facility to figure things out.
Once there, she meets a cast of characters, some of whom are helpful (an honest doctor, a woman struggling with her
own past) and some not so much (an inept therapist, an overly optimistic man prone to quoting Bible verses). Rowe's
book does not provide easy answers, but her capacity to eventually sin bravely signals a new beginning. This engaging
and adventurous book is an excellent companion for fellow seekers. --Christine Engel
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Engel, Christine. "Sin Bravely: A Memoir of Spiritual Disobedience." Booklist, 1 Dec. 2016, p. 4. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA474715442&it=r&asid=f8c537b3424420ec9d09ab21d049350c.
Accessed 11 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A474715442
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Rowe, Maggie: SIN BRAVELY
Kirkus Reviews.
(Oct. 15, 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Rowe, Maggie SIN BRAVELY Soft Skull Press (Adult Nonfiction) $16.95 1, 10 ISBN: 978-1-59376-659-7
How an overly zealous religious imagination hampered the author's life.From a very early age, Rowe, a comedy writer
and producer, knew she was a Christian. She had her own Bible complete with commentaries that she spent hours
reading and quoting. She tried hard not to sin, and she made sure to be a silent and then direct witness. However,
despite her best attempts to accept Jesus as her savior, she always had a nagging sense of doubt that her best efforts
were not good enough. She felt that Jesus could "turn on me at any moment; that He is kind until He is not, that He is
absolute love until He is absolute vengeance. I know He could effortlessly toss me into hell for all eternity before
turning back to nuzzle his beloved sheep--all without messing up His Pantene hair." Rowe's obsessive worries about her
faith plagued her as a young child, and she takes readers through the years leading up to and through a three-month
stint in the evangelical psychiatric center she attended when she was 19. Full of the normal angst that most adolescents
experience, Rowe's stroll down Memory Lane contains the added layer of her religious fanaticism. Her worries about
whether she had truly accepted Jesus grew progressively worse as time passed, especially when she reached college and
began to date. Love, lust, and religion all comingled in the author's mind, creating a mixture of stress and fear that
made her sick. Rowe is candid throughout the book, giving plenty of details about her psychotic break and of how she
began to find her way back to some semblance of balance, supported by her fellow group members in the rehab center.
Devotees of Rowe's comedy and those with a strong interest in born-again Christianity will enjoy learning about her
strife and road to redemption. An enthusiastic chronicle of how one woman's religious passion almost swallowed her
whole.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Rowe, Maggie: SIN BRAVELY." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Oct. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA466329333&it=r&asid=61cc9dd249846e79061a49f8d365aba4.
Accessed 11 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A466329333
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Sin Bravely
Publishers Weekly.
263.46 (Nov. 14, 2016): p50.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Sin Bravely
Maggie Rowe. Soft Skull, $16.95 trade paper (225p) ISBN 978-1-59376-659-7
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Rowe, the lacerating genius behind the Hudson Theater's Comedy Central Stage show Sit 'n Spin and a writer for
Arrested Development, is seriously funny in her first memoir. She chronicles her clinical case of doubt in the perfectly
manicured evangelical world of her youth. Starting with the flannel-board stories about sister-harlots Oholah and
Oholibah (from Ezekiel 23) in low-cut purple felt dresses and goddess sandals, and moving on to her first stage role in
a play (called 100% Chance of Rain) about Noah and the end of the world, Rowe puts readers in the front car on her
spiritual roller-coaster. In her early 20s, Rowe's wild ride simply glides off the rails when she has a nervous breakdown
while watching Akira Kurosawa's 1990 magical realism film, Dreams. Her childhood terror that her potentially
"lukewarm" Christian conversion will land her in eternal damnation consumes her until she stops eating. Her parents
suggest a residential respite at Grace Point evangelical psychiatric institute, where Rowe is diagnosed with morbid
scrupulosity, a bad case of pathological morality Rowe's fantastic book is a born again version of One Flew Over the
Cuckoo's Nest complete with a Nurse Ratched analogue (the demanding, no-nonsense Bethanie). Not for the faint of
heart, this is a cutting examination of Rowe's spiritual evolution that plunges into the big questions with the
fearlessness found in the most brilliant of comics. (Jan.)
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Sin Bravely." Publishers Weekly, 14 Nov. 2016, p. 50. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA473459043&it=r&asid=8516d71e322d866f5b24c93e4bc06849.
Accessed 11 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A473459043
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Maggie Rowe: SIN BRAVELY
Kirkus Reviews.
(Oct. 15, 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Maggie Rowe SIN BRAVELY Soft Skull Press (Adult Nonfiction) 16.95 ISBN: 978-1-59376-659-7
How an overly zealous religious imagination hampered the author’s life.From a very early age, Rowe, a
comedy writer and producer, knew she was a Christian. She had her own Bible complete with commentaries that she
spent hours reading and quoting. She tried hard not to sin, and she made sure to be a silent and then direct witness.
However, despite her best attempts to accept Jesus as her savior, she always had a nagging sense of doubt that her best
efforts were not good enough. She felt that Jesus could “turn on me at any moment; that He is kind until He is
not, that He is absolute love until He is absolute vengeance. I know He could effortlessly toss me into hell for all
eternity before turning back to nuzzle his beloved sheep—all without messing up His Pantene hair.”
Rowe’s obsessive worries about her faith plagued her as a young child, and she takes readers through the
years leading up to and through a three-month stint in the evangelical psychiatric center she attended when she was 19.
Full of the normal angst that most adolescents experience, Rowe’s stroll down Memory Lane contains the
added layer of her religious fanaticism. Her worries about whether she had truly accepted Jesus grew progressively
worse as time passed, especially when she reached college and began to date. Love, lust, and religion all comingled in
the author’s mind, creating a mixture of stress and fear that made her sick. Rowe is candid throughout the
book, giving plenty of details about her psychotic break and of how she began to find her way back to some semblance
of balance, supported by her fellow group members in the rehab center. Devotees of Rowe’s comedy and
those with a strong interest in born-again Christianity will enjoy learning about her strife and road to redemption. An
enthusiastic chronicle of how one woman’s religious passion almost swallowed her whole.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Maggie Rowe: SIN BRAVELY." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Oct. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA466551583&it=r&asid=f278379e1b40abd3a2fe5ab2f8a7c89b.
Accessed 11 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A466551583
Book Reviews
All Book ReviewsEditor's PicksNewest ReleasesClarion ReviewsBy Genre
Sin Bravely
A Memoir of Spiritual Disobedience
Reviewed by Bradley A. Scott
May 27, 2017
Sin Bravely is a hilarious, thought-provoking, and thoroughly unconventional story of salvation.
Maggie Rowe’s memoir of the summer she spent as a troubled teenager in a fundamentalist Christian psychiatric center is a rare creature: a tale that is simultaneously laugh-out-loud funny and sincerely thoughtful about the role of sin, salvation, and certainty in the human psyche.
As the child of a Southern Baptist family, Rowe grew up on a steady diet of the Bible and Protestant Christian religious teachings. Like many bright young people who take ideas seriously, she asked uncomfortable questions. If God is good and all-knowing, then why does he create souls that will be tortured for eternity? If human understanding is imperfect, then how can anyone really know whether they are saved or damned?
“Jesus’s eyes seemed kind, but I will not let myself be fooled,” Rowe says:
I know that [He] could turn on me at any moment; that He is kind until He is not, that He is absolute love until He is absolute vengeance. I know He could effortlessly toss me into hell for all eternity before turning back to nuzzle his beloved sheep – all without messing up His Pantene hair. I am in jeopardy and I will not let myself forget it.
Driven by such doubts to seek certainty at the Grace Point Evangelical Psychiatric Institute, Rowe instead finds herself immersed in the difficulties and absurdities of lives other than her own, and tentatively exploring a path to something completely different.
Rowe, today a successful actress, screenwriter, storyteller, and producer of Comedy Central’s long-running stage show Sit ’n’ Spin, has a wonderful feeling for the rhythm of a story and a mordant eye for detail. She has tackled religion before, in satirical presentations such as Hollywood HellHouse, but the story presented here is far more personal.
Rowe’s delivery is expressive without being mawkish, conveying metaphysical dread, thoughtfulness, sympathy, and deadpan irony in her tale of self-absorbed therapists, enigmatic counselors, and the eccentricities and struggles of her fellow patients. Most affectingly, she also unflinchingly skewers the naive assumptions, self-indulgent rationalizations, and tormenting doubts of the hell-haunted girl she once was. The salvation she finds is not at all what she thought she was looking for.
Sin Bravely is a hilarious, thought-provoking, and thoroughly unconventional story of salvation, and this is the ideal way to experience it: through its author’s voice.
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The author of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the author for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
Pathologically moral
In her memoir, comedian Maggie Rowe lays bare a struggle with excessive guilt that rivals Martin Luther’s.
by Ted Peters April 20, 2017
IN REVIEW
image of cover
Sin Bravely
A Memoir of Spiritual Disobedience
By Maggie Rowe
Soft Skull Press
BUY FROM INDIEBOUND
BUY FROM AMAZON
Many of us live with a fragile soul, one ever prone to fracturing due to the paralyzing fear of rejection, judgment, even damnation. “Sin Boldly!” responded Martin Luther. When sinning boldly or bravely (pecca fortiter), one can more sharply realize the forgiveness of God. One can more fully experience the overwhelming beauty of God’s grace. One can more elegantly flower as a human being. Only a robust soul can sin bravely; only a soul bathed in divine grace can thrive on the stains of life and laugh at impurity.
Maggie Rowe reveals some of this grace in her coming-of-age story. Rowe, who has written for Arrested Development and produces the Comedy Central stage show sit ’n spin, excels in creating theatrical satire. Likewise, the theological satire in her memoir is warm but pointed.