Names and faces
■ A onetime flight attendant who conjured fictional nightmares during breaks on cross-country red-eyes has a seven-figure deal for two novels. The Simon & Schuster imprint Avid Reader Press announced this week that T.J. Newman’s first book, the thriller “Falling,” comes out in July. The narrative is a horror story — a different kind of airplane read — that understandably gave the author chills. On a crowded flight from Los Angeles to New York, passengers are unaware that the pilot’s family has been kidnapped and the pilot must crash the plane to save them. Newman came up with the idea during one work shift when the passengers were sleeping. “I’m looking out at the passengers and it’s quiet and it’s dark and it occurred to me at that moment how vulnerable the passengers were at the hands of the two men who were flying the plane,” she said during a recent phone interview, adding that she later described the plot of her book to one of the pilots and asked what he would do in that situation. “And he didn’t have an answer. It was right there that I knew I had to figure it out.” Newman, 36, a native and longtime resident of Arizona, has been writing stories for much of her life and had tried acting and bookselling before becoming a flight attendant a decade ago, a profession shared with her sister and mother. After completing a draft of her novel, she tried finding an agent but was turned down dozens of times before being taken on by Shane Salerno of The Story Factory, whose writers include Don Winslow and Janet Evanovich. Newman, who has already begun a second novel, said she used everything from an iPad to the backs of napkins while writing “Falling.” She should have a much easier time for the next book: Soon after her contract was finalized, she quit her job.
■ A theme park in Utah has filed a lawsuit against Taylor Swift that accuses her of trademark infringement. Evermore Parks said in its suit, filed Tuesday, that the title of Swift’s 2020 album “Evermore” violates the park’s trademark rights. Swift’s lawyers said the allegations are “baseless” and they refused to comply with a cease-and-desist letter the park sent to Swift on Dec. 18.
They added that the singer-songwriter styled her new album “in a way that is entirely distinct” from the park’s aesthetic. Evermore Park was created in 2018 and features costumed actors and performers. In court documents, CEO Ken Bretschneider said that after Swift’s album was released Dec. 11, search results for the theme park dropped on Google in favor of the album. Bretschneider also alleged that the “Evermore” album title infringes on the park’s merchandise designs, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.