NYT best-selling author and Loyola alumna Kelly Williams Brown '06 is set to release a new book, Gracious: The Subtle Art of Charm, Tact & Unsinkable Strength this coming Tuesday, April 4, 2017.
Brown's first book "Adulting: How to Become a Grown-Up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps," a guide for millennials in managing the stormy seas of adulthood, was widely acclaimed, reached success on the New York Times Bestseller list, and was translated into nine languages.
Her second book, Gracious: The Subtle Art of Charm, Tact & Unsinkable Strength, shows readers that being gracious isn’t about manners or style alone, but the ability to be truly present to the humans around you. The book sets out to revive the practice of graciousness in daily life and is packed with tools and observations that will help anyone exude this universally beloved quality, no matter the circumstance. With the wisdom of gracious folk from around the country, Brown explains the perspective, actions, and sometimes inaction that help us move smoothly and effectively through whatever life tosses at us. Brown covers everything from Facebook etiquette to being a gracious houseguest to being gracious to yourself, all with her unique humor and personality readers came to love in Adulting.
Kelly Williams Brown's work has appeared on or in the New York Times, the Today Show, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Esquire, The Boston Globe, Fast Company and many more. The Washington Post called her "a Millennial advice-guru," and her TEDx Talk, "I'm a Millennial, and I am a Monster" was a TED.com editor's pick of the week. She's also spoken at NASA, universities across the country and was invited to the White House to facilitate a conversation about student loans with President Obama in partnership with Tumblr.
She has also worked as a long-form features writer, a humor columnist for The Daily Beast, a cocktail waitress on Bourbon Street, and for several years covered rural Mississippi for a daily newspaper, which has left her with a lifetime supply of ridiculous anecdotes to tell at cocktail parties.