As a front-line human resources professional and consultant for over 20 years, Monica Chenault-Kilgore dedicated herself to helping organizations attract, develop, engage and retain stellar talent.
In 1992 she founded The Chenault Group Inc. (TCG), a New Jersey based human resources consulting consortium, to provide a wide range of transformational learning programs, change management, organizational development, and talent management initiatives to diverse companies and organizations. As a result, she has guided individuals from entry-level to senior management through every phase of their career, and organizations to achieve business stabilization, continuity and expansion by building human capital.
However, Monica had a burning desire to write more than proposals and training material. She had always dreamed of becoming a published author, writing stories that threaded historical facts within engaging fiction. It wasn’t long before yearning for creative writing overtook her drive for gathering corporate achievements and Monica pivoted from corporate storytelling to telling her own imaginative stories. Gathering inspiration from actual interviews of intergenerational women and veterans of WWII and the Korean War, she crafted her first novel. Despite countless rejections from agents and publishers, she held fast to her dream, persisted and finally reached a milestone, entry into the publishing arena with representation.
Her debut novel, LONG GONE, COME HOME published in June of 2023 by Graydon House/HarperCollins, is a historical women’s fiction novel that navigates the rhythms of African American life, love, jazz, blues, resistance, and resilience during the turbulent 1930s through early ‘40s. The well-received, fictional story is peppered with characters – saints and criminals living though life punctuated by the shifting racial climate during this historic period.
Born and raised in Cincinnati Ohio, Monica currently resides in Edison, New Jersey. A graduate of The Ohio State University School of Journalism, she has written two booklets entitled, Liberty and Justice for All…Profiles of Middlesex County African American Veterans of WWII and the Korean War for the New Jersey State Historical Commission and Middlesex County Cultural and Heritage Commission. Interviewing Veterans sparked her interest in the period and accelerated her desire to complete her first novel.
Monica’s sophomore novel, THE JEWEL OF THE BLUES, an adventurous 1920s tale of one woman’s quest for stardom on the vaudeville stage, will be available November 19, 2024. She is currently writing a third novel.
When not writing, she enjoys relaxing with a freshly brewed cup of coffee while listening to all sorts of jazz and classical music with her wonderful husband, son, and very spoiled cat.
Monica is represented by Kevan Lyon of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.