Amy Falls Down

The endearingly bitter writer, Amy Gallup, 60, has happily isolated herself from the world spending the last two decades teaching and reviewing. She has done a lot of thinking, but very little writing. She hasn't published a book in 20 years, and she's settled into a quiet life with her beloved basset hound, Alphonse. On an unassuming morning, in her slippers, Amy trips in her backyard, goes head-over-heels, and into the side of a birdbath. She knocks herself out just hours before she's scheduled to play the role of has-been local writer, none too excited about the newspaper interview she's agreed to give. But her head injury leads her to be interpreted as a rambling genius, which in turn brings media attention and reopens the door to writing. The hospital clears her of head injury, so Amy returns home. When a local reporter shows up for a scheduled interview, Amy is not quite herself. The article paints Amy as a the zen-goddess of writing, publishing, and life. Her bizarre interview was interpreted as the rambling of a true genius. But all that really happened was: Amy fell down! The next thing she knows, friends and fans are coming out of the woodwork. Suddenly Amy is on radio shows, keynoting a major publishing event, and guiding a local writers' retreat. But the strangest thing of all: Amy starts to write. Readers witness Amy confront her past and present, and choose to take down the walls she so carefully wrote up around her. This novel is a mirror into today's publishing world, a humorous roman-a-clef about a bitterly uninspired writer who decides to change her life after a freak accident.