📚 A Bookish Chat with 'Arise & Walk' S.M. Adams #AuthorInterview #BlogTour #Interview

S.M. Adams is a licensed secondary school teacher and experienced college instructor with over 10 years’ experience in the field of education. She holds graduate training in both American History and Adolescent Education. A confessed late bloomer Sarah returned to college as a student-parent to uncover her life’s passion for education and helping others. For years of community service and volunteer work, S.M Adams was awarded the prestigious New York Life fellowship from the Colin Powell Center for Leadership and Service in 2008 and received the Phoenix Award from Urban Resource Institute thereafter. She also briefly spent time on the policy committee of HEAASC, the Higher Education Alliance for Advocates of Students with Children. As a domestic violence advocate, she has appeared on NYC Fox 5, NYC Bronx 12 as well as in Marie Claire magazine. A graduate of City College of New York and Pace University this New York transplant by way of Jamaica W.I. loves the summertime, reading on the beach, eating mangoes and spending time with her son and husband.

Arise and Walk: From the Sidelines of Life to the Next Level is her latest book.

Visit her website at www.ariseandwalk.com. Connect with her on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

TWL: Welcome to The Writer's Life! How did you come up with the idea to write your book?

S.M.: I’ve always played with the idea of writing but really found my voice and got serious at the start of the pandemic. I used to clap with my neighbors out the window every evening at 7pm when the nurses and doctors ended their shift. After a while I felt like that was not enough that I needed to be doing more to help out. The idea came to me that based on how devastating Covid-19 was many people would need to reimagine and reinvent themselves. And as someone who made a life transformation a few years ago I decided that maybe I could write a book that would be useful..

TWL: Can you give us a short excerpt?

S.M.: In March 2020 the world faced a new thing—Covid-19. It was and is an unexpected, unwanted thing.

With the new year just months old, a deadly, contagious virus led the way into a once-in-a-century pandemic.

Devastating and unapologetic in the way it changed lives, Covid-19 brought the world to its knees. Agendas, programs, and schedules were suddenly discarded and abandoned.

For months until mitigation efforts were decided upon, it seemed we were all benched like players waiting for the whistle to blow.

In the end, forward movement could only be made if we adjusted and adapted.

New rules and new procedures were put in place of once routine tasks.

The upheaval and discomfort of these changes rattled some folks, many of whom resisted boisterously and belligerently.

I did not.

Instead, I folded and conformed into the change.

I had never experienced a pandemic before, but I was familiar with the need to pivot.

What many people considered disruption was familiar to me.

My life had always been littered with unexpected challenges.

I knew what it felt like to be suddenly sidelined, waiting and watching as time marched on.

And so as the pandemic raged, I simply did what I knew worked during these times.

I began to reposition myself.

Like a player seated on a bench during halftime, I planned for the rest of the match and prepared for the whistle to blow.

TWL: What part of the book was the most fun to write?

S.M. Adams: I had the most fun with the final rewrites. In the beginning it was a bit of hard work to get the ideas down on paper. After I figured out what to say, the rewrites were fun, it was all about finding the most interesting way to say something.

TWL: What’s one fact about your book that would surprise people?

S.M.: That it uses a tennis bench analogy to describe some of us who get so discouraged by the challenges of life we refuse to get back into the game of life!!

TWL: What other books are you working on and when will they be published?

S.M.: I’ve already outlined the second book in the series to be released in December 2022. I’m already having so much fun with it.

TWL: Finally, what message are you trying to get across with your book?

S.M.: That it is possible to reimagine and reinvent ourselves. That life transformation is not only a ‘mamby pamby’ term used by patronizing well meaning friends to get us to feel better when something bad happens but there are actual real-life mindset shifts and action steps we can take to reimagine and reinvent ourselves.

TWL: Do you have any final words?

S.M.: Scattered throughout the book are supportive resources such as life plan template, other book recommendations and charts.

Title: ARISE & WALK: FROM THE SIDELINES OF LIFE TO THE NEXT LEVEL
Author: S.M. Adams
Publisher: Kingdom Building Project
Pages: 188
Genre: Self-Help/Personal Development/Women’s Personal Growth/Personal Transformation/Life Transformation

Whatever challenge you may currently be facing, Arise & Walk: From the Sidelines of Life to the Next Level offers a proven framework to assist you in making that much needed life transformation.

During the pandemic with her classroom shuttered S.M. Adams an experienced educator and instructor shifted her focus from teaching adolescents to creating a different kind of lesson plan, one to help survivors of the Covid 19 pandemic and its devastating aftermath, reimagine and reinvent themselves.

Always a teacher first, this new author with over a decade’s experience in New York City classrooms uses verbal imagery, examples from her own life along with interesting analogies to make clear the mindset shifts and action steps which lead to a transformed life.

So, if you’re unsure of what to do, look no further.

Arise & Walk: From the Sidelines of Life to the Next Level will help you to think about: