When I was told it was tough to get a literary agent, I secured one on my third cold call. When I was told that an unknown author was unlikely to get a six-figure advance, that’s what I received for my first book, which sold to a major publisher in a pre-emptive bid. When 25 years into my career as an author and journalist, we got 60+ rejections on “My Orange Duffel Bag: A Journey to Radical Change” over a two-year period working with two agents, we self-published. We sold 12,000 copies in the first six months and won every award for which I entered our book. Shortly thereafter, a third agent sold our book to Random House, making it the first self-published book ever acquired by that publisher.
In the course of pursuing stories, I've bungee jumped with Richard Branson, hiked the toughest mountain in Montana with our oldest son Caleb, and explored an ice cave in the southernmost glacier in North America, just outside of Whistler. I'm a risk-taker, stubborn and like doing exactly what folks tell me can't be done.
The first in my family to attend college. I picked Auburn University, because I thought its yearbook was the best of the ones I saw in my high school guidance counselor's office. Since I was the yearbook editor, I deducted that it must be a sign. My husband and college sweetheart Kevin Garrett and I moved from Chicken Road in Lebanon, Tennessee -- hmmm, I wonder if that's why those editors wouldn't answer my queries? -- to New York City, where we lived for a decade until after the birth of our second son.
Born in Nashville, Tennessee, into a music business family, I grew up hanging out in recording studios and working every school break at my dad’s publishing juggernaut House of Gold Music on Music Row. My late father Bob Montgomery started in a Rockabilly duo as a teen with his best friend Buddy Holly. I was named after Buddy's old girlfriend Echo. Next my parents moved into a basement apartment. Their next-door neighbor was Patsy Cline. I remember Patsy. As a three-year-old I loved when the lady with raven black hair and a slash of red lipstick came over. She'd flick her red, white and blue cigarette lighter that played "Dixie" for me over and over again. My mom sang backup for Elvis, Bob Dylan and a slew of other artists.
I learned that you could make a living with words from my songwriter father Bob Montgomery, who penned "Misty Blue," "Love's Made a Fool of You," "Heartbeat" and "Back in Baby's Arms," among many others. Most importantly, he taught me to chase your dreams and ignore the naysayers. After all, he didn’t listen when a well-meaning uncle chastised him for giving up picking cotton for picking guitars. Still, without Miss Sharon Tracey, my high school English teacher, I probably wouldn't be a writer today. She took my poems and stories started entering them in city-wide and state contests. To my amazement, I won.
When I told my journalism professors at Auburn that I wanted to write for magazines in New York City, they kind of chuckled. That just made me more determined. So my new husband Kevin N. Garrett and I moved to New York where I learned the business from the inside out by working at two different national magazines and then going freelance. Over the past four decades as a journalist, I've written for women's magazines and then moved to business magazines and general interest. For one year I served as editor-in-chief of "Atlanta Woman," mainly because it sounded like fun and a challenge. My first issue as EIC won "Best Single Issue" out of 400 magazines in the Southeast. I got yet another book contract the day after I'd signed on to be EIC. I finished ghost-writing "Tales from the Top" in three months while juggling 80-hour weeks.
I've written or contributed to 25 non-fiction books, many of which are memoirs and several of which have won awards.
Thus far, my best-seller has been "MY ORANGE DUFFEL BAG: A Journey to Radical Change," another memoir with a purpose combined with self-help that I co-authored with Sam Bracken. Originally self-published in 2010, the book won six national awards for best young adult nonfiction and best self-help. It also won two international awards for best book design out of more than 4,000 entries from 14 countries. My husband Kevin Garrett, an internationally acclaimed photographer, provided 60 original images for the book. Crown Archetype/Random House acquired the rights to our book in June 2012 and relaunched with a first-printing of 65,000 along with the companion book "My Roadmap: A Personal Guide to Balance, Purpose and Power." Both books sold out, and we've now gotten our rights back. In 2013,"My Orange Duffel Bag" won the American Society of Journalists & Authors Arlene Eisenberg Writing that Makes a Difference award that is given every three years to the book that's made the biggest difference in society. I co-founded the Orange Duffel Bag Initiative, a 501c3 nonprofit that does life plan coaching based on Sam's 7 Rules for the Road, with students experiencing homelessness, high poverty or aging out of foster care. We've graduated more than 2,000 students from our high school progam and our "Coaching to College Completion" course. We provide ongoing advocacy.
My work has appeared in more than 100 media outlets including Parade, The New York Times, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Money, Success, and Health. Our son author Connor Judson Garrett and I co-founded and run Lucid House Publishing, a small bespoke publishing company that represents a dozen authors, whose work we love as well as our own projects. One of my best moments of my career was editing "SPELLBOUND UNDER THE SPANISH MOSS: A Southern Tale of Magic" that Connor and Kevin N. Garrett co-authored during the pandemic and that we released under the Lucid House banner in June 2020. The young adult fantasy novel has won wide acclaim and is the first book in The Spellbound Series. Virtually our entire catalog of books has won awards, and several have won multiple awards.
I love writing stories that inspire greatness and that help people to dream.
