Denise Bossarte
IAN: Please tell us about your latest book.
Denise Bossarte: Thriving After Sexual Abuse is an eloquent and empathetic self-development book laying out a blueprint for survivors to heal themselves. Denise Bossarte writes with fierce candor as she shares her own traumatic experience with childhood sexual abuse. Thriving provides tips and suggestions for readers to seek help, self-reflect, and pursue healing through a range of activities and practices and offers tangible strategies for readers to reclaim their lives and move forward to a life of Thriving.
IAN: Is Thriving After Sexual Abuse published in print, e-book or both?
Denise Bossarte: Print and ebook.
IAN: Where can we go to buy Thriving After Sexual Abuse?
Google Plus – pending review
Apple iTunes – pending review
IAN: What inspired you to write Thriving After Sexual Abuse?
Denise Bossarte: I wanted to share what I had done on my healing journey as an inspiration and guide for other survivors.
IAN: Did you use an outline or do you just wing the first draft?
Denise Bossarte: I had an outline of that had the topics for each chapter in the book.
IAN: How long did it take to Thriving After Sexual Abuse?
Denise Bossarte: 4 years. I started the book in 2017. I took about 6 months of 2020 off from working on the book so I could try to get an agent. No luck there so I self-published my book.
IAN: What do you hope your readers come away with after reading Thriving After Sexual Abuse?
Denise Bossarte: Ideas on how they can start their healing journey and what things they can try to help themselves heal. The book is meant to be interactive with questions for the reader to work on in their journal.
IAN: How is Thriving After Sexual Abuse different from others in your genre?
Denise Bossarte: My book is not simply a memoir of an abusive childhood. Nor is it simply a self-help book. It is a combination of my story and a blueprint for other survivors of abuse and assault to find their own healing journey.
IAN: Name someone outside of your family members who you feel supported you in the creation of your work.
Denise Bossarte: My editor Candace Johnson was incredible! She was over the top supportive of my work and helped me to bring my dream of my book to life.
IAN: Who designed the cover?
Denise Bossarte: I had the concept for the images on the book and the title of the book. zeIena at 99designs.com helped me take it to the next level.
IAN: What was the hardest part of writing Thriving After Sexual Abuse?
Denise Bossarte: Getting past the writer’s block of being afraid of what people would think of my story and the information I was going to offer in the book.
IAN: Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
Denise Bossarte: You were not at fault for what happened to you. You are an incredibly strong human being to make it through what you did. You deserve to live a full, thriving life. Give yourself the gift of a healing journey!
IAN: Were there any challenges (research, literary, psychological, logistical) in bringing your story to life?
Denise Bossarte: There were a lot of psychological and emotional challenges in bringing my story to life. I couldn’t just sit down and start at the beginning with the introduction to my story. I had to approach the book slowly, sometimes one paragraph at a time to avoid getting overwhelmed with memories and strong emotions. I skipped around in the various chapters, doing ones that I felt the most comfortable writing about first. And in each chapter, I started with the questions for the readers and then went back and wrote the parts of my story that were related to the chapter topic. The very last part of the book I wrote was the Introduction that gives my story of abuse and healing. It took all the work on the other parts of the book before I was strong enough emotionally to write down my story.
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