NEWS

Family’s past inspires gift to mental health care residence

2018 Regions Hospital Foundations Annual Report

December 31, 2018

In December 1950, Jim Kosmo was nine years old when his father was forcibly removed from their home and sent to the Mendota State Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin. “He was trussed up in a straitjacket and isolated in a tiny, sterile white room away from everything and everyone he had ever known,” Jim said. His father was sent home after six months of treatment, “but before long he began talking to his imaginary friend again. When that invisible being told him to kill his family, he set our house on fire while we slept.”

Rosario: A memoir wrapped inside a murder mystery, ‘Monsters in the Hallway’

Pioneer Press

November 13, 2017

Jim Kosmo, like most folks, shakes his head at the recent scandals involving Minnesota and national lawmakers, Hollywood celebrities and others accused of sexual assault or harassment. “It’s disappointing, to say the least,” said Kosmo, who is known around these parts as a former mayor of Bayport, past president of the St. Paul Rotary club, and longtime riverboat captain and partner of the Padelford Riverboats firm. Captain Jim piloted quite a number of vessels up and down the ‘Ol Miss until his retirement in 2010. He applauds the courage of those coming forward and naming names.

The truth beneath novel’s cover

Leader-Telegram

October 21, 2017

Truth is stranger than fiction...

Facing Down Monsters

VolumeOne

November 5, 2017

Monsters in the Hallway, released Oct. 27, is based on events from author Jim Kosmo’s childhood in Eau Claire in the 1950s and ’60s. The predominant storylines of his book open windows into his life, growing up with a father who suffered from schizophrenia. Kosmo also shares a vulnerable part of himself by telling the story of his own experience with sexual assault through one of his characters, 12-year-old Jason Korsen.