What happens when the world takes everything from you — your children, your family, your faith, even your name — and dares you to keep standing?
Katie Simpson’s My Own Damn Table is a raw, unflinching memoir of survival, betrayal, and the relentless fight to reclaim a life on her own terms.
Raised in a home where love was conditional and safety was a myth, Katie grew up learning to shrink herself in order to survive. That training carried into adulthood, into a marriage marked by control and violence, into a church that demanded silence, and into a courtroom where truth was twisted beyond recognition. When she finally broke free, she paid the ultimate price: her children were stripped from her, her reputation destroyed, and her identity erased.
And yet — she refused to disappear.
With a voice equal parts sharp, sarcastic, and deeply vulnerable, Katie tells her story not as a victim, but as a survivor. From purple-stained potatoes to custody battles that felt like war, from teenage scars to spiritual awakenings, from losing everything to building a love-filled life with her husband Ken, she reveals what it means to fall apart and rebuild stronger, louder, and unapologetically.
My Own Damn Table is more than a memoir. It is a manifesto for anyone who has ever been scapegoated, silenced, or shamed into believing they don’t matter. Katie’s story is a reminder that healing is messy but possible, that laughter can coexist with pain, and that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is build your own damn table and decide who gets a seat.
Powerful, heartbreaking, and defiantly hopeful, this memoir is for survivors, seekers, truth-tellers — and anyone ready to stop begging for permission to exist.
Katie Simpson is a writer, workplace culture strategist, and unapologetic truth teller. She has spent her life learning how to rise from dysfunction with resilience and humor intact. Her debut memoir, My Own Damn Table, is a raw and unflinching story of survival, betrayal, and rebuilding- proving that you don't need to beg for a seat at a someone else's table. When she's not writing, Katie runs Ember & Oak Consulting, where she helps organizations untangle dysfunction and rebuild cultures of integrity. She lives in Montana with her husband and unruly dogs, where life is equal parts chaos and comedy.
