I Was I Am Virtual Book Tour May 2011

I Was I Am

Join Allison Moore, author of the self-help memoir, I Was I Am: How To Move Beyond Your Past To Create An Extraordinary Life, as she virtually tours the blogosphere in May on her first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book.

About Allison Moore

allisonmoore Allison Tammy Moore’s own rise from being labeled a habitual offender to prominence deems her an expert on personal success. Born to teenage parents and ending up being adopted, Allison lived a life plagued with abuse, addiction and crime. With a criminal history, low self esteem and no one to guide her, Allison went to prison and developed her own method of recovery by redefining success. Through persistence and determination, this ex-offender to extraordinary woman, immediately used her past to fuel her passions, became a published author, speaker and entrepreneur. She is dedicated to help educate people to new levels of involvement in the lives of ex-inmates, victims, and their families. Often being called “Joseph”, after Joseph in the Bible, Allison is known as an over comer and inspires all she comes in contact with.

Allison Moore is Co-Founder of Meet Her At The Gate, an organization devoted to assist women exiting prison. Allison is also the author or several magazine articles and her first book entitled: I Was I Am….How to Move Beyond Your Past to Create an Extraordinary Life.

She is the wife of Quadir Moore, Founder of Meet Her At The Gate. Their work in the ministry is built upon the scripture Psalm 16:11: You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. The Moore’s are honored to be the parents of three children, Kahlil, Jayda and Taahir.

You can visit her website at www.allisontmoore.com

About I Was I Am

iwasiamcover One of the most difficult things for ex-offenders to accomplish when they are released from prison is finding employment and becoming a productive member of society. For many, the stigma of a criminal record is just too much to overcome. For others, like Allison, it is a matter of viewing obstacles as an opportunity. “I Was I Am…How to Move beyond Your Past to Create an Extraordinary Life” (http://www.allisontmoore.com), a book by motivational speaker, author and ex-inmate Allison Moore, provides an account of her prison experience as the catalyst for change and guidelines for those who struggle with being hindered by their past.

Moore wrote, “I Was I Am…How to Move beyond Your Past to Create an Extraordinary Life” (Allison T Moore Publishing, July 2010, $14.99) not just for individuals with a criminal record or who have been incarcerated, but for those who have past experiences that prevent them from living a full life. The book draws from her experiences in order to educate readers on the reality of the prison sentence, the lack of support systems and the perils of living a life unmanageable. Whether it is a physical prison experience or a prison in mental capacity, she shares her beliefs on how to become free. Her memoir is scheduled to be released on July 20, 2010.

Allison Tammy Moore’s own rise from being labeled a habitual offender to prominence deems her an expert on personal success. Allison went to prison and developed her own method of recovery by redefining success. Through persistence and determination, this ex-offender to extraordinary woman, immediately used her past to fuel her passions, became a published author, speaker and entrepreneur. She is dedicated to help educate people to new levels of involvement in the lives of ex-inmates, victims, and their families “I decided to share my experiences in the hope that my book will help readers remove the limitations to being successful” she says.

Read the Excerpt!


Chapter 10

“I can work for the Lord in or out of prison.”

Charles W. Colson

I AM Overpowered

by numbness throughout my entire body. Barely standing, I felt as though my legs would give out at any moment. My eyes were drawn to people who were moving like actors in an old fashioned silent movie. Their lips were moving but eerie silence was all that came out. A tug on my arm brought me partially out of my fog. The cold metal chilled my wrists and my feet shuffled along with a constant clicking sound that led me out of the courtroom.

Just a few hours earlier I had strutted in with confidence. Now I was being led away not so sure of myself. Now darkness and clouds of gloom surrounded me and surrounded everything in that courthouse. I should have sensed it. You know the way it smells just before a mid-summer rainstorm, how every one of your senses knows the storm is coming. Then the winds begin to blow strong and the thunder begins to roll. Well, I missed all the signs of the turbulence about to disrupt my life, and then, without delay, the roof cracked wide open right inside the Chester County Courthouse. I nodded slightly at my attorney. I knew what he was thinking. In his professional opinion, the plea offered to me for a 12-36 month was better than good. I should have accepted it when I had the chance. I gazed in disbelief at my pastor. I knew what he was thinking. In his professional opinion, the suggestion to contest the pre-sentence investigation may have been an opportunity to catch the prosecution off guard. I was confused.

I asked myself, “What did just happen?” I had no answer. Faith-the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not yet seen. Over and over a voice echoed in my head. Faith was what I had done; at least that is what I thought. Practice makes perfect right? I confessed and believed, prayed and stood. Faith told me that my parking spot right out front was only available because Faith was giving me easy access to quickly leave the High Street court and have my Trailblazer on Route 202 in 2.5 seconds. Then this would be all over. Faith said to refuse to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Faith assured me that those who trust in the Lord will never be put to shame, but in that horrible moment, I managed to find the irony of that statement funny. Shame is what was crushing me. Faith was dead wrong. My kids expected me to be waiting for them when they got in from school. My new boyfriend was at work expecting a text from me once I got out. USAir was expecting me to check in at curbside in approximately 24 hours, and a group of anxious trainees were expecting me, one of the companies top producing managers, to arrive for a week long training designed to increase sales at their Raleigh Durham location. Rent was due in 9 days and for once in my life it was going to be on time. The $5000 increase could not have come at a better time. What about my friends? All the people I had to call and share my miracle with?

A series of events occurring over the past year, since my offense, altered my life’s direction. Didn’t that count for anything? The voice in my head got louder and more dominant. “It’s too late……it didn’t work!” My faith was shattered immediately. Without it, where was I going? I thought I was going home. I wasn’t. Where I was, was in the basement if the courthouse, where my heels clicked distinctly against the cement floor. Cold, damp and stuffy best described the atmosphere. By this time my crisply pressed white blouse was wrinkled and stained with MAC. It was hard to wipe tears with handcuffs on. Placed in a holding cell, I curled up on the little wooden bench and stared at all the carvings. I can remember thinking….”why would anyone want people in lock up to know TAE WUZ HERE?” I could hear conversations outside the steel doors but I was unable to see through the tinted two way glass. No longer able to contain my cry to my eyes, I allowed my sniffles and whimper to convert to a full breakdown. “Why didn’t it work?” If faith was here I would probably need to be restrained to prevent myself from choking her to death.

Here’s what the critics are saying about I Was I Am!

Allison ‘Tammy’ Moore has written what at times seems like a tragicomedy: I Was … I Am. In reality, it is her story of incarceration, and how she used the experience to become a better and stronger person.

After being released from prison and her subsequent parole, Moore and her husband started a prison ministry that has helped hundreds of women find their way. Her Ministry is part of the International Network of Prison Ministry (INPM). She has traveled the world telling her powerful story.

While in prison, she came to this conclusion. “Instead of burying your head in the sand, write in it. Instead of trapping yourself in repetitive destruction, with God’s help, free yourself from the self imposed prison, change yourself and the world. It doesn’t matter that you messed up. I don’t know what your obstacles are, but I know that whatever they may be, God can use them.”

In her book, you will read her story; her journey back to God.

Prior to her incarceration, Moore writes of numerous failed relationships with a sordid cast of men, one in particular almost 10 years her junior. She writes that the relationship lasted off and on through fights with his “baby mamma,” two more baby mammas, drug charges, gun charges, and murder charges. “After helping him prove his innocence I thought sure that would be it,” Moore wrote. “Three abortions later, after showing up at a visit and being denied only to let the other girl in ….I still didn’t have enough.” She referred to this as love. This, on top of being put up for adoption as a child along with her other siblings, certainly could have contributed to the emotional scars that she bore. A counselor alluded to those scars during a subsequent sentencing phase for her incarceration.

Moore spent a few weeks in prison for a probation violation for having urine with opiates, although she indicates that it was a false reading. She writes separately of being accused of scamming people out of their money, and of facing a long prison sentence for some other banking con. She writes in her book of her earliest instances of stealing, this “addiction,” she likes to call it, stealing from her father and later from a retail store that she worked at. Some might call it pathological. Her sister was a partner in crime in the retail store thefts, and suffered the consequences of getting caught.

This book is a must-read for those who are behind bars or recently released and truly want to build their life back as a respectable and free member of society. It is a book of hope and encouragement. Moore writes in I was …I Am: “As I progressed in writing this book, I grew, I changed. As it happened, I recorded it. As God revealed it, he not only exposed the wounds; He cleansed them. He healed the hurts and allowed me to see things from His perspective and not my own. While confined in a prison cell, I was made free. Whether you are in a physical prison or a mental prison of your own design, you can change. There is nothing too hard for God. He did it for me and He will do it for you, you just have to believe.” During the sentencing phase of Moore’s incarceration, she speculated that a counselor’s diagnosis of “theft addiction-no criminal intent stemming from emotional issues” would have been persuasive enough to keep her from going to prison. That was not to be the case. Moore is quite candid about an addiction that landed her in prison. She is even more graphic about her initial entry into prison, and her stay there, as she states; “I am listed as Inmate OL8397. Prison has been my home for six months now. I have seen things that I never would have imagined. I’ve seen straight girls being turned out, women who called themselves, look like and move like men. I’ve seen sex in the shower, in the yard and in the cell. I’ve watched women kiss passionately in corners, cry during separation and being handcuffed and escorted and taken to the RHU for fighting. I’ve heard more racial slurs, pick up lines and the F-word more than I can count. I’ve seen the greatest level of disrespect between officer and inmate, women being treated like trash, talked to like a child, called skanks and crack heads and I’ve seen some totally ignored.” She has written a sobering account of life in prison, but more importantly, her spiritual transformation as a result of it.

Moore indicates in her book that she is better off as a result of her time in prison. “I am more sympathetic and compassionate toward others. From where I sit, it is more difficult to judge. I am sitting at a table with those who have seen the unimaginable, witnessed the indescribable, and committed crimes unthinkable. I am where we are all the same. (writing from prison). Funny … that’s the way God sees us. His eyes are like these eyes. I am no different from Karen who killed her husband … Melanie who buried her baby alive … Amy who molested a young boy … Juanita who has 25 counts of prostitution … Maryanne who robbed a bank with her husband … Tonya who set her lover’s apartment building on fire,” she concluded. “I am compassionate for those who are sentenced to life, 20 to 30 years, 10 to 20 years, 5 to 10 years, 2 to 4 years and 1 to 2 years. I am more understanding of those who leave and violate and come right back.”

Moore questions her early relationship with God. “As a little girl, I did not think that God was fair. I mean, he took my Mommy and Daddy when I needed them the most. I believed he answered prayers but that was a scary thing to me. I watched Mommy ask God to take away the pain… He did, I felt like he gave it to me.”

As she grew older, she went to church because she was expected to do so, reciting rehearsed prayers she had been taught. “ I watched people fall out and call on Jesus and it frightened me. I listened to what the Pastor said because he was closer to God than me. I believed he knew the Bible and I didn’t,” she recalled. “God wasn’t fair. In my opinion, he only helped when the pain was so bad, and there was absolutely no other way out. Deep down, I think I anticipated trudging through hell before God would help me into heaven…. I did not know him as a God of love, peace and protection. I knew him as selfish, partial, and one who inflicted retributive suffering according to his attitude.”

It took prison for the author’s viewpoint to change. I highly recommend her book.

Dennis Moore is a member of the San Diego Writers/Editors Guild.

banner bar Allison Moore’s I WAS I AM VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR ’11 will officially begin on May 2nd and end on May 13th. You can visit Allison’s blog stops at www.pumpupyourbook.com during the months of May  to find out more about this great book and talented author!

If you are interested in participating in this tour, please contact Tracee Gleichner at tgleichner(at)live(dot)com.

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