Interview with Roslyn Cohn Author of Who Saved Who

I'm excited to share this special interview with author Roslyn Cohn as part of her blog tour with WOW! Women on Writing.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts today, Roslyn. In your book, you share a deeply personal journey intertwined with messages from the Other Side and your mother's enduring words about saving dogs. Could you share the moment or experience that inspired you to start writing Who Saved Who?

I had been journaling my daily life on Facebook during the pandemic with Fluke and Diva. Hundreds were following my journey with them by 2022…and then the miracle that happened. They witnessed it in real time and based on how I was posting, people were writing about how moved they were reading my words and that I MUST write this book to help others who have gone through similar loss, are in pain and the miraculous joy that then occurred that turned it all around. It’s ultimately a healing, transformative and uplifting journey they wanted me to share with the world.

That's amazing, how wonderful! Having worked with notable personalities on stages of all sizes, from intimate theatres in Los Angeles to Broadway, how have your experiences as an actress influenced your storytelling style and the way you've chosen to present your journey in Who Saved Who?

My Dad was a gifted, charismatic conversationalist and he passed the storytelling gene on. All in my family are funny and really good at conversation, ask anyone who knows us. The Cohns can tell a story and that includes my Mom who is an Emmons – there’s the Scots gene who are great storytellers) My mom always told me I was a writer but I don’t love the process like I love acting. It’s solitary. I love the community in acting. Having studied great plays throughout my life, I understand structure and what tends to pull people in. I wanted to make this a quick and easy read. I struggled to find a way to incorporate so many photos and am so grateful I found the company who could do this…but I was met with a lot of initial push back from my story editor as pictures eat up profit. I’m not interested in personal gain in this – I simply want to help others and get these amazing creatures out of shelters. Once you get to the last third of the book, there are videos on my YouTube channel, RoslynCohn, that correspond to what I write and I give readers the link to those amazing videos. I want people to feel as if it’s happening to them and those videos are quite funny and moving. I hope people are availing themselves of that experience.

You touch upon navigating life in a post-pandemic world, alongside personal and global tensions. Could you discuss some of the challenges you faced during 2022 and how these experiences contributed to your growth and the book’s development?

Truth. I was traumatized by the Trump years. The constant insanity of the news cycle was enough to drive one bonkers and then the Pandemic hit and the insane way he and his cronies handled it is despicable. God help Democracy throughout the world if that Criminal gets back in Office. No subtlety here. I’m Jewish and I call Fascism out – this is what the MAGA GOP has become and it is exactly like Fascism. It makes me feel badly for true Conservatives. I respect them. I don’t respect MAGA Trumpers. He is a Liar, a Criminal with the Goal of Destroying Democracy and loves alignment with leaders like Putin. Need I say more on that? No. But that is what fed into my depression about the state of the world. I didn’t even know I was depressed. More to the point, I was traumatized. Biden, thank God, became President and things started getting back to sanity and kindness. But my personal trauma with Fluke and Diva was underway unbeknownst to me, so that when 2022 hit I was living the most difficult journey of my life to date.

I am a theatre gal at heart. The pandemic decimated our world. I couldn’t get sick because I had nobody to take Fluke to his surgery/PT appointments or to Diva’s PT. I lived like a hermit except for taking care of my furry kids for 3 ½ years. I literally didn’t want to be here any more after Diva would pass, I felt. I lost the purpose of my acting life as there was little work and none for me at the time as I didn’t dare venture on stage with Covid a reality. What started to turn it around was when I was given The Other Side and Back by Syliva Brown. I don’t trust psychics but I was in terrible emotional pain and Leslie Gallagher McMahon at Two Hands Four Paws, where Diva and Fluke did physical therapy, gave it to me after reading some of my FB posts. As I read it, it confirmed what I knew was messaging Fluke had been sending me….and the book then goes into that more specifically and how I was able to find a purpose higher than the one I felt had been robbed from me by Covid. I finished writing the book on Christmas Day 2022 but it took nearly a year of editing and working with photos to bring it to publication on Amazon. Thankfully I am back acting and doing what I can with the book to help the shelters in it, Hank’s Legacy Foundation and East Valley Animal Shelter. I hope my book inspires others to volunteer at shelters if they can’t adopt and for people who are ready, to adopt their next furry family from a shelter.

"We save dogs, Roz, that’s what we do," your mother told you. How has this philosophy impacted your life and why do you think the relationship between humans and dogs is so transformative?

Dogs were treated with the same amount of love and attention growing up as we kids. I would go through such heartbreak when relationships with boyfriends would end. Mom would look at me, pointing at our gorgeous dog, Maxferd, and say, “Why are you crying over them? They aren’t worth it! HE (Max) is worth it, not THEM.”

I have never known life without a dog in it except for the 20 days after Diva crossed over. I now understand why my Mom couldn’t wait to adopt one of our rescues, Betsy, less than a week after we lost our beloved Niki. Each day we wait to heal, another dog is living a terrified life in a shelter…500 are euthanized daily in the LA animal shelter system. It’s a problem perpetuated by humans and now I understand that my healing (and my Mom’s underlying message to me) can only truly happen quickly when another dog is saved. The only reason I waited 20 days was because I had to do a demo shoot for my acting reel 10 days after Diva crossed over and then I went to NYC for 9 days. I had to get to NYC to be able to walk again. I felt like my legs had been cut off and I knew pounding those streets, seeing Broadway/Off-Broadway theatre and old friends was the only way I could get my legs back and move forward. I rescued Maui and Kona the day after I flew back to LA. The truth is we rescued each other…and 8 others….Readers will find out about that if they read the book!

Your book mentions receiving messages from the Other Side. Without giving too much away, could you elaborate on how these messages influenced your journey and the writing of Who Saved Who?

I know I’m going way out on a limb sharing what happened in this regard but I only want to be authentic and help. I have always felt there was more than this plane. I write about several instances of both my parents making things happen which provide such clear proof that there is life on the Other Side. When I found Pam Walker, my animal communicator, she blew me away with what she relayed from Fluke. It was utterly mind blowing how everything she was saying was happening in real time in Diva’s reading. I think it must bring up complete fear for those who cannot contemplate that there is life beyond this one in another manner. Does it have to do with guilt, that fear? I don’t know but I do know that life does continue for us.

We are energy, we are Spiritual. And that has zero to do with religion. It’s not just comforting to know this, it’s even more reason to live an honorable life here so that when we cross over, we have no regrets for wrongs we may have done to others or to our planet and her non-human life forms. BTW, I’m not a vegetarian or vegan. God Bless you people who are. I have tried it and I get too hungry!!! Maybe it’s my body but I bow to anyone who is. Mom was a big animal lover but a meat eater. She needed it, I guess. She was diabetic and not sure if that has something to do with it. But what she would say was, “Do not waste one morsel. An animal has given their life for us to eat. Do not waste it.”

Back to your question. It is the messages from The Other Side which led me to Maui and Kona. I had an empty home and knew I wanted to adopt an already bonded pair. Maui still retains her shelter name but Kona’s name was Howie. Right before I went to East Valley Shelter that day, I had a session with Pam. She said Fluke and Diva are saying no German shepherds, Australia keeps coming up but I think it has to do with your acting (she had explained that in more detail), and you need 2 different colored eyes plus dogs who’ve been through trauma as you’ve been through it as well. Well, I was shown 3 sets of German Shepards and was ready to say yes to one of those bonded pair when we got to the last kennel and there was Howie, a Queensland Heeler like our Niki and Australian cattle dog, Maui. Howie is my Dad’s name. I said, “Let me see his eyes.” One was blue and one was brown. I exclaimed, “I’m done. This is my bonded pair.” I just knew it. Howie? My Dad’s name? And a Queensland Heeler like Niki? Give me a break! You can’t make this up!!!

Writing can be a form of therapy for many. How has writing this book helped you heal or come to terms with the various aspects of your life, including the loss of beloved furry family members?

It’s not an understatement to say that I wanted to leave this plane. I wouldn’t take my own life, but I felt I had no service to my fellows that was worthwhile without acting and rather than take up space, maybe it would just be best if something would happen to call me back. I’m being very honest so I hope it resonates with others going through such intense pain as I did. It’s my dogs who get me up each and every day because it’s my duty to give them the most loving, safe and joyous life that I possibly can. Showbiz can be very tough, unfair and unkind. Dogs give me a more worthwhile reason to live beyond it.

I’m fortunate that I grew up in a home where our dogs were so beloved. My Dad’s lesson to me from a very young age was, “loving dogs will be your greatest joy and deepest sorrow.” So true. I have taken both of my parents through lung cancer to the end of this life, very awful endings from lung cancer, and as much as I grieved them – there was no more searing grief than the loss of each of the dogs I’ve loved. Fluke’s crossing was the hardest yet. I don’t want to give that away but sudden loss of such a pure love, my innocent furry child, was nearly unbearable.

I’m not sure I’ve had a “catharsis” writing this. I was on a mission once charged with it by my FB community and I couldn’t stop until it was up and available for an audience. I think what having it out there does for me, personally, is knowing that it took guts to reveal very intimate things about my life and that if it gives someone struggling a different way of coping, then it was worth it to write it. If I can help save dogs, it's more important to me than anything, especially an acting award. Awards are nice and they remind you that all the demanding work it takes to do this job has been worthwhile, but you can’t take awards too seriously. I was hesitant to even call myself “an Award winning actress” in publishing this book because I haven’t won any of the majors. But I have won several others and it’s a hook people are interested in to get them to want to buy and read the book. And it’s the truth. Just because I haven’t won an Oscar, does it diminish what I have won? That’s kind of the ”self-diminishing” think that goes along with awards. We need to embrace all we accomplish and shouldn’t diminish our Light because of how it compares to another’s, you know? But re: awards, you can’t take them too seriously at all. You can take a fragile life of an animal who only wants to love you very seriously because they are worthy. Dogs do so much for us. I know they have made me a far better person, a kinder person. I cannot live life without a dog in it. That’s not love nor a loving life for me. I need them. They bring something to my soul no human does. I can’t explain it. They are so honest and true. And so much more beautiful, to me, than we are.

Having co-written and starred in “diffiCult to leave,” you've openly discussed your 23 years in the Cult of Scientology. How has this experience influenced your perspective on freedom, healing, and the themes explored in Who Saved Who?

You ask such fabulous questions Michelle!!! I hope people will go to my YouTube, RoslynCohn, and watch my show because it takes a normal artist’s journey with a real problem and walks you through the Madhatter World of the Cult. Scientology uses Alice in Wonderland in many of their “communication” drills which truly are mechanisms of mind control. Lewis Carroll would be disgusted to see how his Art is being used to claim the minds and free will of desperate people like myself at the time.

After I left, I was nearly agnostic with my ex-boyfriend but re-discovered my own Spirituality after we broke up. I have no judgment about any religion, Agnostics or Atheists, but I did re-connect with my certainty in what God is to me. By the way, Scientology never deals with God. It’s all a hoax. The only reason Hubbard deemed it a “religion” was so they could get tax exempt status. It is NOT a religion. It is practicing Psychology without a license and it is very dangerous brainwashing. I highly recommend the site, xenu.net, to learn how Scientology really is mind control. Breaking free from them and having the courage to do my one night only show was, again, not about me. My life is only a vessel to tell the truth of what goes on inside. I did a short version of it in a cabaret class performance, it got posted online, and next I knew I had people from all over the world finding my email and begging me to finish the story and do a full show.

So like this book, I didn’t want to write it - I had to because people begged me to. “diffiCult to leave” was about exposing the Truth and wanting to help. Some people, including my brothers, were worried about my doing it because they thought I would be shot. Nobody had done a show about them who had been inside. I took the strength it took to tell that story and now tell the story of my love of the dogs in my life and my experiences with The Other Side. Some may mock me. I don’t care. I would rather put my life on the line to be honest and try to help another. That’s a life well lived to me. I approach my acting work the same way. I put my blood, heart, humor, sweat and guts out there only in an attempt to move someone. That’s it for me. I just want to move people, be the best version of myself I can be, help dogs and leave this world a bit better if I can. I was raised by two people I want to make very proud. I pray I am doing so. I pray I am helping shelter dogs…any shelter animal really.

One last word. We can fix this problem of animal shelters and 500 dogs killed a day just within Los Angeles shelters. If people would be responsible in spaying/neutering their furry kids, only adopt when you know you can give them the love and life they deserve, end puppy mills, back yard breeding and leave it to actual breeders – problem solved. No more innocent dogs and cats killed. It’s simple. We can do this Humans!!! Thanks, Michelle, for asking such great questions.

Thank you, Roslyn, for your honest and detailed answers. All the best for your continued success!

About Who Saved Who

Who Saved Who by Roslyn Cohn Growing up in beautiful Bohemian 1970s Marin County, the daughter of a funny pawnbroker-jeweler with vision who knew the streets and a warm, independent Mom turned Naturalist-Animal Rights Activist, Roz is an award-winning actress who spent 20 years in NYC, where she worked on stages from the size of a postage stamp to Broadway.

Roz begins Who Saved Who with her unique parents and upbringing which is so crucial in understanding both her and her journey during 2022. While living in a post-Pandemic world, her career on hold and with politics and the environment in a persistent state of toxic tension, there was little left of life to be desired, so believed Marin County raised and NYC ripened Roz. Told through words, pictures, and video, “Who Saved Who” is an honest, sometimes funny, many times moving, and ultimately joyous journey of 2022 with a woman who was lost. With messages from the Other Side and the words that her Mother said to her years ago, “We save dogs, Roz, that’s what we do,” Roz was able to climb out of deep sadness and found a purpose ignited she didn’t know was flickering inside.

In “Who Saved Who,” readers may recognize their own journey in loving dogs – perhaps heal themselves from the loss of their own beloved furry family member – and best of all, readers may find their hearts open to saving their next canine companion. “Who Saved Who” does more than warm the heart, it can help heal the spirit. It’s an easy and fulfilling read – paws down.

ISBN-13: 979-8865682363

ASIN: B0CNWZ3LYW

Print Length: 157 pages

Purchase a copy of Who Saved Who on Amazon. You can also add this to your GoodReads reading list.

About the Author

Roslyn Cohn is an actress who has worked from stages the size of a postage stamp to Broadway with the likes of Tony Randall, Jack Klugman, Jerry Stiller, Julie Hagerty, and Ellen Greene as well as appeared in TV, film, and commercials. Roz has won awards in Intimate Theatre (known as 99 Seat) in Los Angeles; awards for her Short “Essential Tremors” about her neurological disorder; and in 2013, with Jake Anthony and Joshua Finkel, co-wrote and stars in the groundbreaking, Broadway World Award-nominated “diffiCult to leave,” about her 23 years in the Cult of Scientology. The entire show lives on her YouTube channel: RoslynCohn. You can visit her at: www.RoslynCohn.com. #WhoSavedWho #ShelterDogsRock #AdoptDontShop

You can find her online at:

Her Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/rozcohn

Website: www.RoslynCohn.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roslyncohn/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rozcohn

Follow the Blog Tour

Who Saved Who Blog Tour

April 15th @ The Muffin

Join us at The Muffin as we celebrate the launch of Who Saved Who by Roslyn Cohn. Stop by and read an interview with the author and enter for your chance to win a copy of her book.

https://muffin.wow-womenonwriting.com

April 16th @ Pages and Paws

Visit Kristne's blog for her review of Who Saved Who by Roslyn Cohn.

https://pagesandpaws.com/

April 18th @ Sarandipity's Designs

Visit Sara's blog for an interview with the author and a giveaway of an e-book of Who Saved Who.

https://sarandipitys.com/

April 18th @ Words from the Heart

Join Linda for her review of Who Saved Who by Roslyn Cohn.

https://contemplativeed.blogspot.com

April 20th @ A School Librarian in Action

Join Zarah for her review of Who Saved Who by Roslyn Cohn.