We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Erin Kosovan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Erin below.
Erin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
I knew that I wanted to write a book after countless traumatic relationships. It took me years (fifteen to be exact) to realize that the behavior I was allowing was creating chaos in relationships. I let poor self-esteem and past trauma determine my worth. It took me years to truly understand that I was the problem and I wanted to write a book for other survivors of domestic violence to see that there is more to life that what they are currently allowing. A portion of every sale from my book goes to domestic violence victims and helping them start a happier and healthier life.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am just a normal person. I was raised in a middle class family and had a relatively normal childhood. I say this to point out that trauma and abuse can happen to anyone. Socioeconomic status does not discriminate abuse. People that know me know that I am someone that wants to help others. I started writing this book, reluctantly. I was worried what people would think about me. I was worried that I would be extremely judged, but the ability to help people with my past experiences made me brave enough to write. I write to potential survivors, to families that are trying to understand behaviors, and for anyone that could use a little encouragement. I am proud to be able to help people and hopefully prevent people from making some of the common mistakes that I have made.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
I think the most rewarding part of being a writer is hearing how your experiences and story have helped people be able to open about their own past. I have people message me all of the time telling me that they have parallel stories to me and though it makes me sad that they had to encounter that, it makes me feel good that I was able to resinate with them and truly be a voice for those that have been abused. Abuse is so hard to talk about, but being abused does not make you weak, it makes you strong and that’s something we need to focus on.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I started writing this book in my head a long time ago. It took until after I had my daughter to really start writing it down. I would spend time in between feeding and nap time to write during my maternity leave with her. It was HARD. I was tired a lot from being a new mom and though my husband is a great support system, I was breastfeeding and he could not really do that, so I struggled finding time, but he was very understanding when I would stay up for hours and write into the middle of the night. Resilience for me was pushing myself to meet goals and deadlines I set for myself and not letting being a new mom stop me from what I was trying to accomplish, because after all, I wrote this book for my daughter to ensure she would always know her worth. I would do it all again!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.byrdtheauthor.com
- Other: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=picker+in+pieces+by+erin+byrd&crid=XYOLT3FPPP62&sprefix=%2Caps%2C124&ref=nb_sb_ss_recent_1_0_recent (Link to book)
Image Credits
This is the cover of my book!