Authorial Ego

Posted on May 17, 2003 in Encounters Writing

I came face to face with a best selling author (T. Jefferson Parker) and he didn’t like the fact that I was reading the first lines of books to my friend Donna who’d forgotten her glasses. After we chatted with another mystery writer at a forum, I was about to turn to him. He made a smart remark about not talking to people whose zippers were down. I thanked him and reached for his book. “I have to go to the bathroom,” he said suddenly and ran off.

“Oh,” I said. “I inspired you. How thrilling.”

His opening? It amounted to “It was a dark and stormy night.”