Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
Melonie B, Garrett is a new author that leverages her Master Certified Coaching (MCC), diversity, inclusion and belonging dialogue facilitation, and organizational consulting experiences to develop and enrich her readers. Her writing style is geared to engage the reader interactively using reflection, prompts, practices, and questions with an opportunity to journal. She reaches a multi-generational audience, serving as a powerful resource for transformation. Through a trusting partnership Melonie helps clients to reshape leadership and organizational patterns of thinking and work practices that no longer serve their intent, goals, or desired outcomes. Her coaching approach deepens their self-awareness, social astuteness, and results, enabling clarity of vision, purpose, competence, value, and impact. Melonie is from the Washington, DC metropolitan area, where she is also the Principal and Owner of ATG Coaching & Consulting, LLC. Her career spans the telecommunications, finance, transportation, information technology, manufacturing, and hospitality industries. She has held senior leadership roles in Information Technology, Customer Quality, Leadership Development, and Human Resources (HR). Her coaching and consulting career includes engagements with federal and local government, non-profit, and private organizations across the USA, Asia, and the Middle East. She draws extensively from her various corporate leadership positions, innovation in dialogue learning, action learning/Socratic facilitation, mentor-coaching, and organizational development partner networks.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Stillness In My PPE a prompted journal that can serve as a companion through our pandemics. It was in the stillness of my own pandemic season of Covid-19 and racial injustice, that this prompt journal was placed very explicitly on my heart. Hence the journal was born and I became compelled to share it with the world.
Stillness In My PPE: A Guided Journal for Praise, Prayer, and Enlightenment During Pandemics, regardless of the reader-journalist’s religious affiliation, is an invitation to reflect on your journey through your various seasons of pandemics (dis-eases) and joys (eases)— the dichotomies of life. Whether your pandemic dichotomy is:
• Covid-19 grieving the deaths of loved ones and teaching you to celebrate their lives
• Racial injustice cutting your breath off and breathing easier because the world finally hears you
• Divorce feeling isolation and solitude/peace
• Facing an empty nest feeling a loss of identity and finding who you are underneath parenting
• Losing a job and sense of identity and finding a new identity and a way to make a living by living your passion, or something else altogether
Besides the times we are living in, I was inspired by a vision that came from my meditative practices. Very vividly I was told to to write a prompt journal to help people to be still and connect more fully with who they are beneath their ins and outs and ups and downs of life. So “Stillness” is designed to encourage the reader-journalist to look deep within for inspiration, rediscovering the answers to their hidden identity, perfect imperfections, passions, and belonging. Thankfully one of the gifts of our pandemic seasons is stillness, leading to becoming more fully the YOU, you were created to be. Additionally, my 13 year old niece illustrated the cover of the journal by coincidence. This further reinforced that publishing the journal was divinely guided!
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
One of my unusual writing habits is to allow myself to be guided by the real creator of the vision. It was never on my bucket list to be an author. Yes, I enjoy writing letters, notes and prayers, but a published book never occurred to me. I really felt spiritually guided. Stories and questions to prompt the reader-journalist just flowed and called up my own experiences and stories deep within.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Walter Mosley is one of my favorite authors. He always asks questions or seeks answers that most are not focused on pursuing. Maya Angelou is also someone that has influenced me. She was always so wise and insightful, guided by her spirituality.
What are you working on now?
I am working on bringing some of the reader-journalist of “Stillness In My PPE” together virtually to share their stories that the journal has helped them to surface. I want to help them share the stories and look at the embodied learning.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
So far YouTube has been the most helpful for telling my story and promoting Stillness In My PPE https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=stillness+in+my+ppe
Do you have any advice for new authors?
My advise for new authors is to go for it. Tell your story and map out your plan to promote your story. You do not always need to spend money to have a publisher promote your book if you leverage your network and social media.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
The best advice I have heard is “Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal”
What are you reading now?
I am reading “Lost Connections: Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope” by Johann Hari.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Next for me as a writer is to publish some of the prayers and notes of affirmation I have written over the years. Additionally, I want to creating a prompt journal to help us to reconcile our personal views on racial injustice.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
I would take the following books: the bible, A Walter Mosely book, and my journal, Stillness In My PPE. The latter would help me to capture my experience on the desert island and draw on what I have right within.
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