Welcome to the fourth installment of the Sunbury Press author journey series!
In every book, there's a story. And not just the one between its pages.
Every author has a different journey for how they ended up with the incredible book that landed in our inbox. Sure, we loved the book that they sent to us--enough to publish it and share with you all--but we wanted to know what it took for them to write that book, what drove them toward publication, and to get to know them better as artists.
And instead of keeping those answers to ourselves, we thought--to hell with it, let's share it with YOU.
We are thrilled to continue this new author-centric series with the hilarious Gerri Almand, author of The Reluctant RV Wife.
Now Presenting...
by Gerri Almand
The Reluctant RV Wife was a fluke. I never planned to write a book, just as I never planned to bounce up and down the road in a tin-can house. I cringed when my husband announced his dream of buying an RV and seeing the country. Not once had I EVER wanted to be one of those old coots tootling around in an obnoxious motorhome. But I eventually agreed to try it, and off we went.
It didn’t take long to realize my husband’s RV enthusiasm was unlimited and his wanderlust insatiable. I threw hissy fits that each road trip lasted longer than the one before. My hysterical complaining failed to faze my husband. By our second year of RVing, I knew I had to reconcile being torn from a sticks-‘n-bricks, stay-at-home lifestyle to living part time as a gypsy. I started writing to manage my angst. Words erupted like projectile vomit, and it felt like I was leaving deposits on the keyboard as I struggled to get it all out.
As I wrote, the conflict between a reluctant wife and her excited husband traveling in an RV metamorphosed into a story arc. I realized my emotional meltdowns went beyond resistance to RV travel. The story became a growing old temper tantrum, a final attempt at figuring out the meaning of life and how to spend the rest of mine. Our RV had turned my life upside down and changed me in profound ways. I wanted to share the struggle and the ultimate triumph of achieving a new kind of freedom through a minimalistic lifestyle. My manifesto, The Reluctant RV Wife, was thus born.
My first public appearance as an author took place in a Sunbury Press booth at the 2019 Decatur Book Festival, outside of Atlanta, Georgia. A stranger approached me at the festival. My cardboard poster of the cover of The Reluctant RV Wife had caught her eye.
“Is that a true story?” she asked me, looking at the title of my book.
I laughed. “Yes, it is. I never wanted an RV—my husband did.”
“And he dragged you off in that thing?”
“Well . . . I did agree to it, though I hadn’t wanted to.”
The woman continued. “Back when my husband asked me to marry him over forty years ago, I looked him straight in the eye and told him there were three things I absolutely would never abide: cheating, beating, and RVing.”
I burst into a deep belly laugh. Other women who overheard the conversation laughed as well. “I’m going to steal those words,” I said. “I love that story.”
That conversation followed me home. I had met many women and a handful of men who reported wanting no part of RVing but had spouses who did. How could those folks oppose RV travel so adamantly if they had never tried it? Then came the epiphany: I’d been just as reluctant as they professed to be. Maybe my story would help change some minds.
Both RVing and writing a book challenged and changed me. While I had never considered becoming a nomad, I had dreamed of being a writer since childhood. Instead, I became a social worker and spent forty years writing Psychosocial Evaluations, Social/Developmental Histories, and Child Custody Investigation Reports. The RV proved a vehicle for finding my voice and fulfilling that childhood fantasy of becoming a ‘real writer.’
My husband argues that The Reluctant RV Wife is his book. He jokes, “You had nothing to say until I bought you an RV.” While I disagree with his summation, writing a book about RV travel now feels like the most satisfying accomplishment of my life. It’s also been a hell of a fun literal and literary journey.
About the Author
Gerri Almand is a retired social worker turned writer, storyteller, and speaker. Her husband’s retirement crisis, which included buying an RV and declaring they should see the world, has given her untold ammunition for writing material. With a permanent home address in Tampa, Florida, Gerri and her husband Michael Hamlin now switch off their reluctancies. She continues to feel quasi-reluctant on the road and he feels acutely-reluctant during their periods at home. Learn more at her website.
Praise for The Reluctant RV Wife
