Elizabeth Smart, left, the keynote speaker for Mississippi University for Women’s Welty Gala, signs her book, “My Story,” on Friday night, while Elise Wilson, The W’s director for alumni and development, speaks with those waiting in line at Trotter Convention Center. Smart was kidnapped at 14 years old and survived nine months before being rescued. She now works as a victims’ rights advocate and is a best-selling author.  Ashlynd King/Dispatch Staff	
			Elizabeth Smart still remembers the moment she decided she would write her first book. After enduring what would become one of the most closely followed child-abduction cases in the country, all she wanted to do was withdraw.
“Sharing my story was something that I did not want to do for years and years. I remember saying, ‘I’m never going to write a book. I’m never going to speak about it. I’m never going to do anything. I just want to disappear,’” Smart said. “And so it wasn’t until after my case came to trial where I ended up feeling like everything that I experienced was condensed down to a list of bullet points.”
Smart discussed her path to becoming an author and victims’ rights advocate Friday as keynote speaker for Mississippi University for Women’s Welty Gala, which benefits the university’s scholarship fund, held at Trotter Convention Center.
She said she has used writing as a way to reclaim her narrative and give strength to others.
“I remember thinking, ‘My life is more than just a list of bullet points, and if this is something that anyone could request court transcripts to find out what happened, I’d like to set the record straight,’” she said.
Setting the record straight
Smart was just 14 years old when she was taken from her home on June 5, 2002. She remembers the night vividly. She was reading a book to her younger sister before drifting off to sleep.
“The next thing I remember was hearing a man’s voice, and this man said, ‘Don’t make a sound, I’ve got a knife to your neck,’” she said. “The first time I heard that voice, I just didn’t think it could be real. I didn’t think there could be a stranger in my bedroom. There’s no way that that could happen.”
But it had. Her kidnapper forced her into the woods and marched her through the night to an isolated tent where his wife waited. Smart endured almost nonstop physical, emotional and sexual abuse and wondered how she would survive. She said she feared the experience had “ruined her forever” and that no one would ever love her again.
“It took time, but I realized that my parents would still love me no matter what, even if nobody else ever did. Because they always had,” she said. “And ultimately, that realization is why I decided I was going to do whatever it took to survive. … I was going to see my parents again.”
On March 12, 2003, police rescued Smart from her captors after she was recognized. She would go on to testify against her kidnappers in court, helping ensure their conviction.
“There were plenty of times during my experience I thought, ‘It would be better if I was dead,’” Smart said. “You know that moment passed. That day passed. … Eventually nine months passed, and I was rescued.”
Despite her initial desire never to speak to anyone about what happened, Smart began working as a victims’ rights advocate after her trial. She became an author, chronicling her experiences in her first book, “My Story,” a New York Times bestseller.
Elizabeth Smart presents to a full audience Friday night at the Mississippi University for Women’s Welty Gala at Trotter Convention Center. The gala benefits the university’s scholarship fund.Ashlynd King/Dispatch Staff
Her second book, “Where There’s Hope,” explores how to overcome trauma and find the strength to move forward.
In 2025, Smart released her third book, “Detours: Hope and Growth After Life’s Hardest Turns.”
“I want anyone out there who’s felt the same way as I did to know that they’re not alone and that they can overcome whatever it is they’re going through, and so that’s kind of how I decided to write my story,” she said. “I feel like it did provide vindication, and helped me feel like I set the record straight that there was no one else out there who was going to go and try to tell my story that wasn’t me.”
More than a survivor 
Smart doesn’t want her abduction to define her.
“I think it’s very easy to feel defined by what’s happened to you,” she said. “I have felt certainly like all anyone is ever gonna know me as is the ‘girl that was kidnapped.’ … I’m more than that.”
Smart loves being a mother to her three children, watching “The Great British Baking Show” and playing the harp, which she studied at Brigham Young University. She also loves Charlotte Brontë, public speaking and standing up for others.
And she’s very, very funny.
The audience laughed at Smart’s stories about her father’s “Nokia brick” phone dying just after she was rescued, cutting off her father’s good news to her mother, and her children’s antics, from blue slime on white carpets to her son interrupting deep conversations with strangers at Costco to announce he needed the bathroom.
As she closed her speech, Smart said her mother told her the best thing she could do was be happy. It’s advice she has taken seriously.
“They did terrible things. It would be very easy to lose the will to live. It would be very easy to shrivel up and stay inside yourself,” Smart said. “My mother never wanted me to give up the hope that maybe the next day will be better. And I think she was right. Life is worth living.”
			
						
						
			
      
      
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