Empress Aurora

This interview with S.I. Ossipov is based on the book Empress Aurora. This historical romance is a book of hope with real life events being the catalyst for its creation. 

Empress Aurora, is a  juicy, gripping novel that takes you on a journey from death and dying to love and intimacy. This read will awaken all of your senses! S.I. Ossipov is one of the great story tellers of our time! Although this is a fictional romance, the author has creatively imbedded life lessons with historical accuracy throughout the story line. Ultimately, Empress Aurora is a much needed book of hope during these trying times.

Transcript

Jeffery Bow  0:04  
Aloha, and Welcome to Create Your Life, Your Way. My name is Jeff bow, and I'm here to serve you as a healer, master certified life coach and Kahu. I will be sharing insights, tips and suggestions to support you on your healing journey. In essence, it's helping to bring you to a place of happiness, authenticity and truth. What do you say? Let's get started.

It is my pleasure today to welcome the author of Empress. Aurora, S.I. Ossipov. Thank you for joining me today. 

S.I. Ossipov  0:43  
My pleasure. This is the first time I get to do a podcast. Thank you. That's great. 

Jeffery Bow  0:49  
I'd like to start off by reading a part of a testimonial I saw on amazon.com. Empress Aurora is an intelligent, clever, literary and yet eminently readable novel It is the perfect book for book clubs, especially women's groups, but men will also be captivated. It's a visionary book that makes for not just an entertaining read, but provide space for self reflection, about your own life and your place within the universe, which is what all great literature ultimately should do. That was by Tyler Tichler.

Wow, is what a great way to start off today. And talk about your book with this amazing, amazing, amazing testimonial. So tell us a little bit about yourself and why you wrote the book.

S.I. Ossipov  1:44  
Hmm, about myself? Oh, I've been widowed. I'm a grandmother of two. I've been to all kinds of venues for training and education, from university to seminaries, to hospitals. And I just have a varied life because I have varied interests. 

Jeffery Bow  2:09  
That's great. 

S.I. Ossipov  2:10  
Yeah, you know, I do need a work I do flower arranging. I love decorating. I sing. I even wrote at least one song.

Jeffery Bow  2:21  
Nice. Nice. So why did you write the book?

S.I. Ossipov  2:27  
Well, I was thinking, what do I want to be? It was just casual thinking. And then the idea of remembering the Shaolin monks of China doing Kung Fu, and then the Knights Templar in the Crusades era, the medieval times? Yeah, people who were both warriors, and at the same time, very committed to their religions are interesting. And one day, one day, what popped in was another word in the middle princess. And I thought, What is this warrior princess priest that? Are we in a Disney movie? So I tried to figure it out. That's my fallback. I'm analytical. So I did a spreadsheet of the three different roles, how they were different how they were, what they have in common. So it's like, I don't know. 18 different categories, plus another six, 

Jeffery Bow  3:35  
wow, 

S.I. Ossipov  3:36  
but it didn't help. And then a couple of years later, I got a life coach. And in our conversation, it popped up well, without saying, so why don't you try? Right, brain. I mean, in my mind, that's what we're doing. Saying then, it didn't work on the left brain side. So how about the right brain side, write a novel, because I also needed to deal with closure on my husband's long dying, he was ill for 10 years, and then it took about 10 months of slowly dying. 

Jeffery Bow  4:08  
Wow. 

S.I. Ossipov  4:09  
And I really did not have closure on it. So jumping into this novel was a first time thing. I never thought of myself as a novelist because I didn't think I was that creative. And it was a very surprising journey, combining intellectual with spiritual with emotional.

Jeffery Bow  4:33  
That's amazing. That's amazing.

S.I. Ossipov  4:37  
It was, it was. And there's a lot in the book because my interests are complex, and therefore the book is complex. It has a lot of different combinations that mystified people. For instance, my Midwestern editor said, for a book that's about Russia, why is there so much Asia? Actually, it was Japanese and that's because this was therapy. So it was who I was. I was Japanese third generation raised in Hawaii, multi ethnic community near the ocean. So my book had to be near some kind of body of water. And yeah, it was, it was quite a, quite a journey, because I had no idea what I was doing. I was just, and if you talk about process that was like, what was the process? It was simply being open to whatever was going to go as far as going with the flow. 

Jeffery Bow  5:41  
Wow. 

S.I. Ossipov  5:44  
You know, I was surprised at what came out, like, where did all this come from? I thought I knew what I was I was going to do I was going to write four books on the lifespan of a princess, her childhood or adolescence or adulthood, her elder years, named all four volumes had a theme for all the volumes. Then I started writing, and it came out Kdrama. What? Why not a romance novel, but that's what it turned out to be. I thought, Oh, what the heck, I'll just, I'll just go with it, you know, and began writing lots of romantic sex scenes. And then I had a reason for it. I found out because I like research. I like learning. So just like, included, exploring the arena of sex, which I thought I knew, but turns out no, I didn't know much. And then I found out people don't know about sex, and they don't know how to do sex. And the poor younger kids nowadays, their source of information is pornography,

Jeffery Bow  7:01  
wow, good point,

S.I. Ossipov  7:04  
which has become really violent, anti women, dehumanizing, and very unrealistic. So if that's the only source of information you've got, that's pretty sad. So I thought, at least in my mind, I'm not it's, it's really interesting. I just embedded sex education manual from how do you explain reproduction to a child? To? How do you actually go about having a sexual relationship with someone to what happens during pregnancy? And what's childbirth? So I even have a childbirth scene.

Jeffery Bow  7:44  
Yeah, I noticed I have a copy of your book right here with me. And I want for one, I love the cover. It's a beautiful cover. And I know there's other parts of the book. So tell us about the book about the storyline and some of the things that Empress Aurora goes through and some of the things that are happening. And was this based on real life events? Or is this just obviously it's a fiction, I noticed that there's a lot of historical accuracy in the book. So why don't you tell us a little bit a little bit about the book.

S.I. Ossipov  8:20  
Okay, so I've got this warrior, your loyalty or warrior princess priest. And I had the example of the British Royal Family. Right, the monarch is the head of the Church of England. The all the men are in, do have a military training, or service. And that's the warrior part. The Royal is that they're all Royal. And the last part is that priests part, which is the head of the Church of England, so they represent the spectrum of what I was trying to do. Now. I don't know why. But I came up with a title first and Empress Aurora, I want it to be about a woman. And it was like, okay, the only two countries I know that have strong emphasis on China, and Russia. And at that point, I felt more drawn toward Russia because I've been there. Not been to China. It's, I've been to Europe four times. Wow. So I'm more oriented that way. And then I just did tons of research. It sometimes I came across things it would be hard for my mind to wrap around. So sometimes I you get it to like, I can't believe this, like what's going on? I don't understand this. But it was like running into the way Russians named their children. Oh, interesting. Like I had no idea that This is how they named their children. There's an order to it. And, and so then I have to, because I was writing, you know, stream of consciousness I was I did not in the beginning pick a century, I did not pick a particular country other than Russia. And I needed after a while, you need to focus in on some particular century so that it is grounded and not just this airy fairy kind of thing of it could have been, I think I was trying to be like some of these really cheap romance novels where it's not specific. But it wasn't working in my novel. So I had to say, Okay, I know it's mostly Russian. So what century

Jeffery Bow  10:43  
so it sounds like you did a lot of research, even though it's a fiction.

S.I. Ossipov  10:47  
Yeah, I did. I love to learn and I didn't know that much about Russia than them what mostly we know from books and movies. I picked the 18th century because there was anchored by the two greatest czars Peter the Great Peter the first at the beginning of the 18th century, who did a tremendous amount of change and progress to Russia and at the end of the century cast in The Great Catherine the second she kind of took up the mantle from him even though in between there were other people. So I loosely based my characters on those two people. So I need her be in some smaller countries. So I bought a world map. I looked I wanted to be near a body of water so sea so which country Ukraine is too big? Moldova is too small there next is Romania. I thought, Oh, no. I know a little bit of Romania, because it has Transylvania in it. And we all know that as the place where Dracula is. But I thought I could use that information. But what I knew about the real Vlad the Impaler and I did. So if anybody ever asked me how come he was able to so suddenly invade and conquer my room Bravia, which is a standard for Romania, I would say, Well, he was already in Ukraine, copying blueprints, which is historically true,

right? So how would you summarize the storyline?

It's about a woman that can't find her destiny. She's born Royal. She hates it. Sometimes she's a child, but she's stuck with it. Like what is she going to do? Because she has to protect her country, she has to carry on her family legacy ,nice, even though like it, that's her her task in life and how she, this child grows up. It starts with her being a two day old baby and her parents talking about her. And how she maneuvers and learns how to deal with being Royal. And the power that comes with it, as well as the difficulty that comes with it. It's really, it's in some ways, a coming of age story.

Jeffery Bow  13:25  
Ah, interesting 

S.I. Ossipov  13:27  
as you watch grow up, and become more mature because you know, she's very child force because she's a child. Right? Because she's so I love this character. She's so interesting. She's curious, she's intelligent. She's extremely physically fit. And also, there's a little bit of sci fi in it, or fantasy, I should say. Because she has an unusual heritage. She and her brother ah. And yeah, and I don't play it out, you know, this part of the fantasy sci fi fantasy thing, but it's there and it has its influence in our life.

Jeffery Bow  14:12  
Oh, interesting. So after the reader reads the book, what do you want them to get out of the book?

S.I. Ossipov  14:21  
I say I want to take them on an adventure about how things can go south on you without your ever wishing it as life happens. Life happens to her tragically at times. But we all I really believe that people can rise to the occasion that in the crisis, you you just cope. It's based on my very basic understanding of how human beings are created in the image of God. which means that you've got tremendous power and resource.

Jeffery Bow  15:05  
Nice. Nice.

S.I. Ossipov  15:08  
So that I hope, I hope that people get that, that no matter what life throws at you, you can deal with it. And you will meet people that will help you. And that even though the people who you wish were still around, but they're gone, the fact that they loved you, they trained you, whatever, that's still in your brain and in your body. 

Jeffery Bow  15:35  
I love that 

S.I. Ossipov  15:36  
can carry on in their name, if nothing else. 

Jeffery Bow  15:39  
Yeah, I love that absolutely love that anything people forget, even for a short time, if someone's time on Earth is very short. It's still a blessing. Whatever the time, it was, what when they were here on earth that I believe, right? So I love I love what you're saying about the book? And it sounds like it's a book of hope.

S.I. Ossipov  15:58  
Yes, definitely. That, you know, for most of us, we've just it's life is just putting one foot in front of the other because you don't know what's going to happen down the path. And most of us kind of want well, okay, I'd like to have a list of what I'm supposed to do today. You know, I don't have to think about it or struggle with it, just give me a to do list and I'll just tick it off. And assuming it's from what you call, divine source, or God or deity or whatever, that it's going to be something that's good for you and good for the planet or whatever. But that's not how it goes. We, we kind of have to go through life. Just what we can see a couple of feet ahead of us, we don't see the path all the way down. And if we did, we probably would be too scared to take a step 

Jeffery Bow  16:53  
boy, isn't that such a good description for these COVID times like when COVID first started and going through that. And I think the timing for this book is perfect that you know, we all go through things in life, right? That's what I'm hearing you say that we all. We all go through things in life, but there's people along the way to help us. There's resources to help us and there's always hope.

S.I. Ossipov  17:17  
Yeah, and I know some people have grown up in very bad dysfunctional families. My heroine has almost the ideal family. Very unusual for royal family because her parents absolutely love each other very deeply. And they raised their children that way in love. So she has this reservoir of deep strength. And even though she questions, I think the book really is about identity. Oh, interesting. Even though she's given one, yeah, your royal you know, deal with it. She still is struggling to know who she really is.

Jeffery Bow  17:57  
Identity in the sense of self discovery.

S.I. Ossipov  18:00  
Yeah, of who she really is, as an individual. I mean, she's very rebellious. Because she doesn't like the fact that she's given this assignment in life. She can't get out of the fact she was born to a royal family, because that's just a given. And for most of us, we have no choice in the kind of family we are born into.

Jeffery Bow  18:23  
That's such an interesting statement that you made. Because isn't it true? You're it's almost like you're describing our souls growth. Right. We're always learning. We're always learning lessons. We're always going through life, there's going to be something and it never changes until we leave this planet. So I find that an interesting description.

S.I. Ossipov  18:46  
Well, it's a Yeah, that's how I've been taught that. Life is a journey. Yeah. It's not over until it's over. And that hopefully we still keep growing each step of the way.

Jeffery Bow  19:02  
Yeah, absolutely. And sounds like this book was a big part of your journey, and an important part. And so how has writing this book changed your life? If any, if any way,

S.I. Ossipov  19:17  
it did help me come to terms with my husband's dying. I think that the reader who does not know my background would wonder Whoa, that's pretty heavy stuff. Two strokes, two cancers. But that's what actually happened to my husband and our family had to do. Yeah, so it was, my goodness, I had to almost take a deep breath and gird myself before I started writing about those chapters of our lives. It was like reliving it so it was hard. But in doing so, it was cathartic. You know, I could Because I could write it out outside of myself. It was, I was able to kind of like, relieve myself with this burden of memory that was kind of like stuck inside. And now I could bring it out and put it on paper so that I just felt so relieved after I wrote those chapters, even though it was hard, emotionally.

Jeffery Bow  20:23  
Sounds like a lot of processing went on as you wrote this book.

S.I. Ossipov  20:28  
Yeah, because it was. See the great thing about fiction is that you can make it any way you want. 

Jeffery Bow  20:34  
Right, right. Right. Right. 

S.I. Ossipov  20:36  
So I did an ideal way. Most of us do not deal with crisis. neatly. It's kind of messy. But in real life, but as a novelist, I could make this that even though it's tragedy, and it's difficult that they come out of it in a good way.

Jeffery Bow  20:59  
Yeah, yeah. So with all this, with all the books out there, why should a reader choose Empress Aurora?

S.I. Ossipov  21:11  
I don't know. It's just a very complicated book. But it's like that reviewer said it's readable. It's a page turner.

Jeffery Bow  21:20  
Yeah, I read a comment. Or I heard I can't remember if I heard it or read it. Yeah. Somebody picked it up and they couldn't put the book down.

S.I. Ossipov  21:31  
Yeah, I Yeah. What somebody was one of my friends, she got the book. And I was I got texted by her like, four times in 27 hours. She was just tearing through the book. In fact, she she ended up reading it twice. Wow. And bought, bought it as gifts. Wow. Interesting, because she bought it for people in bereavement, which is not what I expected. Even though there's a lot of tragedy in the book, and deaths. It's like, yeah, once you've been hit with the loss of a family member, a relative somebody love. It is. Yeah, being run over by a truck. Yeah. Hi. How do you deal with that? That kind of emotional whack. And so I guess reading about somebody else's tragedy, or tragedies, I should say, just helps you get out of yourself into somebody else's life, even though it's fictional.

Jeffery Bow  22:45  
Interesting. So you know that it brings me into this to ask you the question from your point of view as the author who should read the book.

S.I. Ossipov  22:52  
Who should read the book? I think somebody who is questioning their place in life. Yeah. I had in my if anything, anybody I had in mind while I was writing this, not all the time, but a lot of time I was writing it for military. Oh, interesting, particularly disabled veterans. Wow. You know, that's, I think the most drastic change when you're physically mentally fit and doing something important, and then you get disabled. Yeah. And you're at the other end of the spectrum. How do you deal with that? Yeah, we're no longer the strongest, smartest, whatever, you know, it could be you're, you're gonna get PTSD with nightmares and, or you've lost the leg or your mind is affected badly. How do you serve on many dome? That's why we have such a high suicide rate. Yeah. True. So that's kind of on the periphery, but kind of, you know, pointedly, I mean, that's why there's so many military chapters. Okay. Anyway, yeah, but yeah, I cover a lot of ground.

Jeffery Bow  24:20  
Yeah. And you know, it's interesting, because I sense that there's more to this book. I I can feel the emotion. What is the emotion behind? That your feeling about the book when you talk about the book, there's a lot of emotion behind it.

S.I. Ossipov  24:43  
I think it's because through writing it. I discovered who I was, and trying to help the fictional characters be who they were.

Jeffery Bow  24:59  
Nice It's interesting. Yeah.

S.I. Ossipov  25:04  
Yeah, a lot of novelists write for their own therapy. So this is one of that kind of case where I'm writing from my therapy. Yeah, yes, a lot of the book is based on my life, or other people's lives I know about. But of course, lots of it. Most of it is fictional. But there's enough of real life experiences that make it for this kind of ring of, of authenticity. Because it is based on real people's lives. 

Jeffery Bow  25:36  
That's beautiful. What are you most proud of? With this book?

S.I. Ossipov  25:46  
Wow. That it got done.

Jeffery Bow  25:51  
How long did it take you to complete?

S.I. Ossipov  25:56  
novelist? That's an introvert thing, writing a novel. I am an extrovert. This is against my personality. But we had the pandemic lockdown. Like, okay, what do I do here? What happened? This book came out of the pandemic. And it was, it was a fantastic experience. Because I was doing something I never thought I'd be able to do. Yeah, I believe in human potential. But when it actually happens to you, it's like mind blowing. Amazing. I really, like where do these stories how did this all you know, because there's so many twists and turns to this. And there's a lot of humor throughout the book as well. So it's like, I, what can I say? To be? Source God, whatever. Yeah,

Jeffery Bow  26:59  
I love that. Because humor is healing too, right?

S.I. Ossipov  27:04  
Yeah, and. Right, it's, it's part of who we are as human beings. We don't laugh or find some kind of thing, some kind of angle to it. That's funny. I mean, there's a lot of sadness too, but there's, it's balanced. The gamut of human emotion, is in there? It can, this book will make you cry, maybe? Laugh. It's surprising the reaction because most of the time authors don't know how people respond to their books. But I thought, a little bit of feedback. I'm surprised. And my editor finaly said that once it's published, it's not yours anymore. It's the readers.

Jeffery Bow  27:47  
Oh, I love that. Absolutely love that. That's great. You know, it's interesting, too, you hear this word pivot a lot during COVID. Right? It sounded like you pivoted in a big way, in not only writing this book, producing the manuscript and getting it published. But you also went through your own processes as you were writing the book, as you were rereading probably what you wrote, and going through it. What an amazing discovery and time and use of the downtime in COVID.

S.I. Ossipov  28:21  
Well, I used to joke with God that you really didn't need to create a pandemic lockdown to make me write.

Jeffery Bow  28:31  
I love that I love that

S.I. Ossipov  28:33  
it. I've been procrastinating for years, people have been telling me since college to write and I'm gonna like write what all books have been written already. And, and then, yeah, what can I possibly add to, to this pile of books that are coming out every month. But it was more important that I do it that it was self expression to the max. I'm a I've been a book lover since I was a toddler. Yeah, love books. I read all kinds of books and all kinds of writings. As I said, I'm a learner. But then and most writers are readers.

Jeffery Bow  29:27  
You know, and what I love about what you said, what I heard you say Sorry, Sorry, I interrupted you. But what I heard you say was, I did it for myself. And I think a lot of times we when we do things we we try to get audience or we try to you know, create something for sale or something. And I love that you said that because first and foremost. You have to love it. And it sounds and I can tell that you're very emotionally invested in this project.

S.I. Ossipov  29:56  
Very because I love the characters as though they were real, because they're in some ways they are real,

Jeffery Bow  30:03  
right? So if a reader reads this book and they're looking for more or for one, let's go back to the book and press where where can they buy the book? Amazon amazon.com. What should what should they search for in the title line?

S.I. Ossipov  30:20  
Just in Empress Aurora should be enough but Empress Aurora  book, if they have problems,

Jeffery Bow  30:27  
okay, good. Since this is on audio, this is going to be a podcast. Can you spell that out for them and Empress Aurora please?

S.I. Ossipov  30:36  
O  E-m-p-r-e-s-s, the name Aurora, A-U-R-O-R-A.

Jeffery Bow  30:45  
Okay, that's great. Just one more time in case they missed it the first time just spell it a little slower.

S.I. Ossipov  30:53  
Empress  E-m-p-r-e-s-s Aurora, A-U-R-O-R-A.

Jeffery Bow  31:05  
Excellent, excellent. And Inquiring minds want to know what's in the future for SI Ossipov? Not that not to give any secrets away or anything. But if if there's anything brewing, if you want to throw a little tidbit out there for the audience that they can, there'll be waiting with bated breath for what would they be waiting for? What's next on the horizon? That's exciting for you.

S.I. Ossipov  31:31  
All right, I was starting to do research on my second novel, medieval times. Celtic druid, that kind of stuff. Wow. But what happened along the way was discovering the divine feminine. So maybe that's going to be the second book. I don't know. Because I'm still in the process of it. I was stunned. To realize that we've sounds funny. We've done God a disservice that humankind for 1000s of years has erased or try to delete the part of the divinity that is feminine. Because I was doing so much research into the past, I came across lots of descriptions of how much how often women and children were oppressed, abused. Gosh, traumatized. And I kept wondering, why is this Why are women actually well, mostly women? Have it so bad. And I kept going back and back and back in history, I got all the way through prehistory. And pre history that is before we could write or had writing. The religions were earth goddess religions, which were very connected to nature, and to peace, because war is harmful to the environment. And then, as these female religions got toppled, and I still don't know why, how that started happening. But it started happening even before the male sky dog, which is, you know, we know as Judaism came in, and Christianity comes out of Judaism. So it was a very long erosion. But I began to shockingly realize what the implication was. That's why we got what we have. You have a toxic masculinity idea that God is male, and that everything should be male oriented. You get what we have. You got a ruined Earth, climate change. And you've got war. We've been constantly at war. Right?

Jeffery Bow  33:55  
Right.

S.I. Ossipov  33:57  
It's very, it's like, it's interesting what Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of England said that if Putin was a woman, he wouldn't have invaded Ukraine. 

Jeffery Bow  34:06  
Oh, interesting.Interesting.

S.I. Ossipov  34:08  
I think that's true. The other thing I realized, Oh, was that this maleness has driven us to what Japanese called karoshi. Death by overwork, this constant drive to achieve to conquer to whatever. imbalance? Yeah, in our social lives. Yeah. So anyhow, I'm trying to get my own path. Back to this because, see, this is the difference. I've read a few books of women who have gone down this path. One was a psychiatrist. She had to let go of her science mind, and really pay attention to her experience or emotions. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. That makes so much sense.

Jeffery Bow  34:59  
Yeah, it sounds like There's a lot it sounds like whatever you come up with next is going to be pretty amazing. Pretty amazing with a lot of research and, you know, both left and right brain things. But you know, as we bring this to a close, what positive message? Would you like to share with the readers of Empress Aurora or the potential readers that are going to go out there and buy your book to read or download the Kindle version? Well, what positive message would you like to leave them with?

S.I. Ossipov  35:33  
Believe in God, believe in yourself, they go together.

Jeffery Bow  35:39  
Awesome. And is there any message that you would like to say to yourself, your future self? 

S.I. Ossipov  35:49  
Keep growing. 

Jeffery Bow  35:55  
Awesome, thank you for that insightful messages to our audience. And we thank you for joining us today. And, again, go to amazon.com and get your copy of Empress Aurora either the Kindle version or the printed version, and leave your five star review comments for SI Ossipov. Thank you for joining us today. We'll be back again in the future. 

I appreciate you taking the time to listen to this podcast. Please share it with anyone that you can think of. They can benefit from this information. It would be an honor if you took the time to visit Soulpono.com for more information about me and my services, that's S-O-U-L-P-O-N-O.com. There is a complimentary life balance wheel that you can sign up for if you choose. 

A Hui Ho, Malama pono until we meet again, take good care.

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