Meet Echo

Yes, Echo is my real name. No, my parents weren’t hippies. My late father, Bob Montgomery, started out as one half of a teenage duo called Buddy and Bob in Lubbock, Texas. I was born the year after his best friend Buddy Holly died, and Dad named me after Buddy’s old girlfriend, Echo. My dad wrote songs, produced music and founded his hit record factory House of Gold Music on Music Row in Nashville. I grew up knowing that you could make a good living from words, That’s what I’ve been doing for the past four decades as a journalist, a magazine editor, an author, a ghostwriter, a book coach, a content provider, copywriter, and now a book publisher as the CEO of Lucid House Publishing in partnership with son Connor Judson Garrett.

When sending queries to editors in New York City from our newlywed nest on Chicken Road in Lebanon, Tennessee, proved less than successful, my husband Kevin Garrett and I loaded up a truck and moved to the Big Apple. I figured the best way to break into the magazine business was to become an editor. I worked at McCall’s (a women’s magazine) and Venture (a business magazine that competed with Inc.) for five years before going freelance in 1988.

Since then I’ve written for more than 100 media outlets including: AARP, American Way, Delta Sky, Private Clubs, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Health, Parade, Success, Inc., The New York Times, Virtuoso Life, Hemispheres, and Atlanta Magazine. A former contributing writer to Money, Business Week, Management Review, Investor’s Business Daily, New You and The Atlanta Business Chronicle, I’ve been interviewed on Good Morning America, CNBC, CNN, NY-1 and have done more than 100 radio interviews supporting my book projects and magazine articles. I was a founding editor of biztravel.com (sold to Expedia.com) and served as editor-in-chief of Atlanta Woman magazine.

My piece “Nashville Now” for Private Clubs was the 2016 Winner of North American Travel Journalists Association Gold for Print-Lifestyle. In 2014 I won the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) Outstanding Article Award, First Place-Lifestyle for “Philadelphia’s Artistic Freedom” in Arrive. In 2013 my story “Desert Renewal” in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution won the ASJA’s Outstanding Article Award, First Place- First-Person. My first issue as Editor-in-Chief of Atlanta Woman took the Gold for Best Single Issue out of 300+ entrants and my story “Why Our Special Needs Kids Are Falling Through the Cracks” took the Bronze for Best Feature at the 2005 GAMMA awards sponsored by the Magazine Association of the Southeast.

Named 2013 Georgia Author of the Year by the Georgia chapter of National League of American Pen Women, I’ve written 22 nonfiction books including My Orange Duffel Bag: A Journey to Radical Change, which was originally self-published and then became the first self-published book ever acquired by a Random House imprint. In 2013 the book garnered American Society of Journalists & Authors (ASJA)’s prestigious Arlene Eisenberg Award for Writing that Makes a Difference (awarded every three years). In 2011 it also won ASJA’s Outstanding Book of the Year in Young Adult category and international design Merit award from HOW Magazine; the Benjamin Franklin Book Award Silver Medal in both Self Help and Juvenile/Young Adult Nonfiction categories from the Independent Book Publishers Association; and an IPPY Gold Medal from Independent Publishers Book Awards for Most Outstanding Design out of 4,000 entries from 14 countries. My Orange Duffel Bag was also named a National Indie Excellence Book Awards Winner in these two categories: New Non-Fiction and Young Adult Non-Fiction. That book starring the life of my co-author Sam Bracken has sold in excess of 90,000 copies if you combine the Random House and self-published numbers. The companion guide My Roadmap sold out of the 10,000 copies printed in three months. Sam and I will soon be making an exciting announcement about My Orange Duffel Bag and its companion.

In 2010, I co-founded the Orange Duffel Bag Initiative (ODBI), a 501c3 nonprofit, to do life plan coaching and provide ongoing advocacy for young people ages 14-24 who are experiencing homelessness, high poverty or aging out of foster care. ODBI’s award-winning curriculum is based on Sam’s “7 Rules for the Road” in the second half of his graphic mini-memoir with a purpose. In 2014 our evidence-based program became the youngest nonprofit to be an honoree of Emory University’s Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Community Service Award. I serve on the Board and frequently speak about how storytelling and advocacy can make a difference in a young person’s life. As of 2022, more than 2,000 students have graduated our award-winning high school program and our Coaching to College Completion program. The latter went virtual during Covid-19 and now serves college students in several states due to our partnership with the nsoro Foundation. We also piloted a train-the-trainer program with Clayton County, Georgia, and are beta-testing an online learning management system that will allow us to reach more of our nation’s most vulnerable students.

I co-authored Why Don’t They Just Get a Job?: One Couple’s Mission to End Poverty in Their Community  about a non-profit called Cincinnati Works. The book won the 2011 IPPY Silver Award in the social issues category, and since the book was released, more than 25 communities have adopted Cincinnati Works’ award-winning model for helping people in poverty find and retain jobs. Because I’m mission-driven, the projects I choose to work on — both as an author and as a publisher — are those that I believe can help people in some way. I especially love sharing the stories of people, who have overcome incredible odds and found success. Most recently, two of my books about entrepreneurs won in the 2022 Book Excellence Awards: Big Lucky: Serial Entrepreneur Jim Markham’s Secret Formula for Success was the winner for Best Autobiography and Knock! Knock!: Lessons Learned and Stories Shared — A Ride-Along with Sales Superstar Douglas Thompson was a finalist for Best Business Book. Almost all of the books that we’ve published through Lucid House Publishing have won awards as well.

I love writing stories that matter and inspire. I cover social justice; health and wellness; business (especially profiles of entrepreneurs); the environment; home design and gardening; travel (luxury, romance, family, eco-friendly and soft adventure); food, wine and music. My husband Kevin (a professional advertising and editorial photographer, fine art photographer and mixed media artist, writer and author) and I live in Marietta, Georgia. We love to listen to music, work in our organic garden, concept new ideas for books, and go on long hikes. During the pandemic, I took up landscape photography as a hobby. Our son Caleb is a fly-fishing guide with the Missoula River Lodge in Montana. Our son Connor, my partner in Lucid House Publishing, also works as a writer and author, content strategist, blogger, and ad copy writer. He currently lives in Beirut, Lebanon, with his wife and their two children.

Words matter. Choose them carefully and use them well.