This is one of my stops during the two month tour for The Little Girl Inside: Owning My Role in My Own Pain by Tonya Barbee. This virtual book tour is organized by Write Now Literary Book Tours. This tour runs October & November. Follow the tour here. Book your own tour here WNL
ASIN: B00VJFVN5Q
ISBN-10: 0692564802
ISBN-13: 978-0692564806
Genre: Non-Fiction
The Little Girl Inside is a prolific story of triumph and discovery of inner peace. With each page, the reader will be captivated while the author uses the writing pen as a sowing tool-seaming a garment of praise, banner of victory and fabric of joy. With imaginative color, the book is a perfectly designed combination of patterns expressing the maturation of a woman.
A uniquely designed transparent jewel every woman should own in her jewelry box. The Little Girl Inside is a ministry resource tool for women in search for transparency in the human heart. The author shows us how to overcome the inner battle of doing the right thing the wrong way, going from finding love in the wrong places to allowing love to be revealed in the right time and in the right place.
I made room for Sir Intellectual to bring what I thought were the remainder of hi things. I also made room on my health insurance policy just in case he didn't have any. Too bad it didn't occur to me to ask him. My ability to confront was non-existent. I decided not to wait until I returned to work to handle it. I contacted my carrier and updated my policy to include my new husband.
The whole time I felt sad that he wasn't contacting his carrier to include me. I had a husband, though what caliber of husband, I wasn't sure. Sometimes I wanted to slap myself for being so needy that I overlooked important things and ignored flags, bells, and whistles.
TONYA BARBEE is a novelist and aspiring playwright. Her most recent published work is titled, The Little Girl Inside Owning My Role in My Own Pain. She is currently working on another project that complements this book. Tonya grew up in Durham, NC, a family of four daughters and one son. Her father, Woodrow served his country for twenty years as an Army officer, retired then taught ROTC for another twenty years and her mother, Doris, a college administrator. She is a proud 1980 graduate of Frank W. Ballou High School in Washington, DC. She worked in operations and management for Department of Agriculture for twenty years. For the past ten years, she’s worked as a project manager for Department of Defense in Washington, DC. She studied at National-Louis University where she earned her Masters in Business Administration in 2009.
Although she’s worked her way up the ladder in the federal government, she had no idea she would end up writing professionally however she has always enjoyed sharing her personal life through story telling with those she thought she could help. Then something clicked. As she writes, she is in hopes that her work reaches her readers that have been through something and have contemplated giving up. Her goal is to enable her readers to become empowered to keep moving forward to accomplish their dreams no matter what challenges they have been faced with.
Tonya resides in Bowie, MD with two of her youngest children, Christian and Zachary. Her eldest two, Andrew and Jessica left the nest years ago and have blessed her with seven beautiful grandkids.
Tell us about your book?
My first book, The Little Girl
Inside Owning My Role in My Own Pain was written to share my story about
getting through a bigamist marriage. I
first focused on bringing awareness to the blame-game. How we as women sometimes get caught up in
blaming others for our mistakes but often times, we need to hold up the mirror
and reflect on ourselves. We need to ask
ourselves, “How did we get in this relationship?” “What could I have done differently?” “How do
I keep meeting the same type of men?” And, finally, take action to make changes
so that there will be a change but it starts with us. We are always the common
denominator.
How did you come up with ideas for this book?
Well
originally, it was supposed to be about my life as a child and how I grew up
and the decisions that made along the way from the beginning to present but I
ended up writing about my last husband and the bigamy. The fact that I was
married to him for eight years and didn’t know he had a wife of 30 plus years
already that he never divorced. So I
ended up focusing on that segment of my life.
What do you hope readers will learn/discover from
reading your book?
I would hope my readers would read my book and say to
themselves, “Where was I at in my life to have met such a person?” “Did I ignore the signs?” “What will I do differently?” “What am I
doing differently?” “Do I forgive myself?”
What inspired you to write this book?
What inspired me
to write this book was the pain and betrayal I was feeling. It was so
therapeutic to write about it. I wanted
to share my story with the hopes that it would prevent someone from going
through the same thing and if they were experiencing similar trouble, I wanted
them to know that they are not alone. It has happened to hundreds of others.
What’s next for you?
I’m currently working on a short
story, a co-author book with several other others. We’ve compiled our most
powerful testimonies and each wrote a few prayers that we hope will help to inspire
others in time of need, encouragement and inspiration.
What was the most difficult aspect of writing this
book?
The most difficult aspect of writing this book was to reveal the pain and
embarrassment of being betrayed and not aware of what was going on for so long.
The fact that I was in a relationship, married, to someone who was living a
double life. Also, while raising a son together- what was I going to tell
him? It was a very painful experience
and I still often struggle with this.
Did you have to do any special research for your
book?
I did research on bigamy. What
types of people fall prey to this and how does it actually happen. To my surprise, most of the victims of bigamy
are actually very intelligent. The bigamists prefer to prey on those that are
intelligent. It’s a game to them and they are typically sociopaths. They don’t
feel pain and don’t understand others’ pain either.
Why do you write?
Is it something you've always done,
or always wanted to do? Or is it something that you started fairly recently?
Since I was in the first grade, I enjoyed writing. I liked telling
stories. I would visualize a story in my
head and want to write about it. In High
School, I actually wrote a play in my senior year that was actually put into
production as our final drama project. It was a great success and that’s when I
knew that was what I wanted to do. But with life events, I got side-tracked but
the dream never left me. I still had it
in my heart and vision as something I must do before I leave this earth.
In five words describe your book?
If I had to describe
my book in five words I would have to say: 1) heart-wrenching, 2) funny, 3)
empowering, 4) insightful, and 5) courageous.
Excluding your own, name 3
books you would recommend to your friends.
I would have to say the three books I would recommend to my friends would be: A Dollar Late, Dollar Short-Terry
McMillan; The Undomestic Goddess-Sophie
Kinsella; Intensity-Dean Koontz.
Name 3 authors you would love
to collaborate with. Terry McMillan, Sophie Kinsella and
Among all the books that you
have read, which of these have significantly contributed to your writing style?
I think Terry McMillan due to the color that she brings to her material and
Sophie Kinsell, due to her conversational tone that’s very comical.
Describe the relationship
between your characters in 3 words. Different, Bad, and Intriguing.
Why do you feel you had to
tell this story?
I had to tell this story with hopes of encouraging others to
really get to know who they were marrying before they said “I do.” Afterwards, it’s too late. I wanted to share
with my readers the signs of someone who is not telling you all that you need
to know and to not ignore that. Most
importantly, I wanted to bring awareness to bigamy. It’s a big issue that is
not being dealt with in our country the way that I think it should. There are no strong penalties for those that
get caught having multiple marriages.
Just for fun
Coffee or tea? I love both, but coffee every day for sure.
3 things you never leave home
without?
I never leave home without my cell phone, my makeup, and my calendar.
Sleep in or get up early? On Saturdays, I love to sleep in. On other
days, it’s very difficult for me to stay in bed.
3 celebrity crushes? Will
Smith, Wesley Snipes, and President Obama.
Tell us something no person knows about you. If I could
dance all night, I wouldn’t have one problem in the world.
Tell us what Hollywood actors would be the characters
in your book? Wesley Snipes, Javecia Leslie (my neice), Lynn Whitefield, Morris
Chestnut, Angela Robinson, Peter Parros, Merle Dandridge, Rick Foxx, Keith
David, and the list goes on. I guess the
budget will have to be high ha?
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