Never discount the power of “Oh, yeah? I’ll show you. Watch this.” Author Beth Revis recounts how just such a thought led to her latest novel, Full Speed to a Crash Landing.
BETH REVIS:
We’ve all been there.
There comes a time in every person’s life when a stranger or colleague isn’t the nicest, and all you can do is grin (or grimace) and not say what you really want to. Every Southerner who’s blessed someone’s heart, every person forced to say “have a nice day” while working retail, and everyone who’s ever had a boss who failed up knows exactly what I’m talking about.
For me, this moment struck at a con.
Phoenix Fan Fusion 2023, to be precise. I was there to promote my various sci fi and fantasy novels, most notably my latest, Star Wars: The Princess and the Scoundrel. The convention itself was lovely in every way…except for one random person who cornered me at my table to inform me that he didn’t really think I was that great of a writer, despite the piles of books on my table. No, he insisted, it was incredibly unlikely that I could write a sci fi tale that was fun and fast paced and romantic without various different qualifying factors that he seemed to make up at whim. He didn’t buy any of my books, of course. He seemed to have come by for the sole purpose of belittling me and then wandering off.
And because I was at a convention and doing public appearances in a professional capacity, I smiled politely while he berated me for my perceived shortcomings. I mean, internally, I was daydreaming about throwing a book at his smug face, externally? I smiled politely, like my Appalachian roots and being a woman in modern America has trained me to do.
But inside, I seethed…
Full Speed To A Crash Landing: Amazon|Bookshop|Barnes & Noble|Malaprop’s
Source: The Big Idea: Beth Revis
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