A valley native is releasing a novel inspired from her job as a flight attendant

Valley native T.J. Newman is a flight attendant turned author whose debut novel, titled, “Falling,” is turning out to be a summer literary sensation. Newman first outlined her novel on cocktail napkins during a long night-time flight. It’s quite a story. It’s quite a novel. We recently spoke to T.J. Newman about her new book. 

“I am a former flight attendant I flew for 10 years and I had the idea for this book on a plane, and I wrote a lot of it on the plane. So, depending on what I had available to me you know I’d write on the back of the passenger manifest or a catering bill or sometimes I could only scribble down notes on napkins,” Newman said.

As a flight attendant, “We’re constantly thinking about worst case scenarios and if something went wrong. What would we do. So this was kind of when I came up with the idea for this book, it kind of just felt like a more intense version of what I would normally be thinking about, which was if something goes wrong, how am I going to react,” Newman said.

What is the novel, “Falling” all about?

“The concept of falling is the story of flight 416. A flight from Los Angeles to New York, and what the passengers on board this flight don’t know, is that just before they took off the family of their captain was kidnapped and their pilot… has been told that if he doesn’t crash the plane. They will be killed. So then the whole book follows the valiant efforts of the crew and the passengers in the air, and the family and the FBI on the ground and their attempts to do the impossible,” Newman said.

Newman is ecstatic about bringing her book showing back to her home state. “It’s just a joyous exciting moment, that feels completely full circle, and to know that I’m going to have my first event at Changing Hands, my former place of employment, and all of my friends and family are going to be there, former teachers from Dobson High School. I’m an Arizona native so it’s like everybody’s here and everybody’s coming out and it’s just going to be this beautiful full circle moment that I think we’re all really going to enjoy.”