Kristof Morrow - Navy veteran, Journalist, and Author - Living and writing with a disability

Kristof Morrow - Navy veteran, Journalist, and Author - Living and writing with a disabilityI’m a veteran, author, and journalist that’s sold more than 1200 copies of my debut book, “The Second Sun,” after going viral on TikTok in June.Growing up, I was the third born but the first to graduate high school. I was viciously abused by my parents. They both have suffered from some form of addiction.I taught myself to write while serving in the US Navy as a Corpsman right after high school, and after leaving, I learned a University education wasnt for me, despite winning the highest award for short fiction and poetry at two different colleges in their annual creative writing contests. While living in Louisiana, I was hired by a film director to help complete his script and got to work on a film set. I became an EMT around the age of 23, then a 911 dispatcher at 26 before earning, by audition, a job at a newspaper. At this point, I was 27 years old and won awards from two Texas Press Associations for feature writing and photography. Amidst this time and in earlier years, I would exchange letters with Pulitzer Prize winning writer Robert Olen Butler. I later became sober from alcohol, as my Tourette’s manifested in a way I could no longer ignore and I spent five years battling worsening symptoms and not writing a word.Several dozen times a day, my ticks force me to slap, punch, and claw myself in the face. It makes me call myself names very loudly that I won’t write here, I say I hate myself, and I’m often laughed at in public, (however, it’s not malicious) additionally, I’ve lost much of the feeling in my right hand from chronic swelling and impact injuries, as it compels me to punch hard surfaces around me. I’m currently wearing bandages and tape on two fingers, and a thumb brace from an injury resulting from just that. On October 16, 2021, I surrendered that fight and began writing once more. In February of this year, I published my first book!https://www.amazon.com/Second-Sun-Volumes-II-ebook/dp/B0BW7GF5SY/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=1TENPLLLJ24ZO&keywords=kristof+morrow&qid=1698173717&sprefix=%2Caps%2C106&sr=8-1https://www.instagram.com/kristofmorrow/https://www.tiktok.com/@kristofmorrowBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/i-am-refocused-radio--2671113/support.Subscribe now at YouTube.com/@RefocusedNetworkThank you for your time.