Home > Pulpwood Queen Blog
*NEW YORK, NEW YORK!*
I have always had a fascination with New York City. When I grew up, I lived for the movies. I loved those black and white films set in New York with all those glamorous Hollywood stars. Scenes with men in top hats and tails, women resplendent in glittering gowns, diamonds, and ruby red lips going to nightclubs where they dined at little white linen covered tables with lamps illuminating in the center. Savy and suave tuxedo’d waiters whisked drinks to the table with names like Manhattans, Sidecars and for that special occasion, Champagne with corks popped and bubbles exploding and fizzling. Sultry torch singers with hankerchief in hand sang their hearts out and dancers entertained us with their spendiferous costumes and razzle dazzle. Oh, the drama and glamour!
Waiters bringing telephones to the table for personal calls. You could dance the tango, cha cha cha, and ballroom dance to your heart’s desire. Nightclubs with dreamy names like the Rainbow Room or slightly naughty Kit Kat Club. Yes, I always dreamed of New York days and nights and just as saying goes, “bright lights, big city”. Now tell me, where is my limo?
So you can imagine my delight and anticipation when my publisher, Grand Central, announced they were flying me to New York City to speak at Book Expo America. I am also to sign advance copies of my first book ever, “The Pulpwood Queens’ Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life”. Small town girl, big city dreams has always been my story. I can hardly wait to visit the BIG APPLE and the largest home of the best in publishing, theater, and arts!
I have been shopping for months looking for just the right ensembles to wear. What a challenge in the land of Wal-Mart and blue light specials here in the East Texas piney woods. With New York City being the fashion Mecca, trying to compete with designer and couture, was I up to the task? Forget Versace, Dior look out! Here in Texas, where we know everything is bigger and better, and we thrive on individuality, I decided to embrace the “Dallas” style. Be prepared for Big Hair, Big Tiaras, KICKASS cowboy boots, and as always with The Pulpwood Queens, Big Reads and BIG TIME FUN! I may never be able to compete with the style and fashion of New York but isn’t it just like they say in writing, “write what you know”? I have decided I will wear what I know. We never take ourselves too seriously, The Pulpwood Queens, but we are damn serious here in the south about reading and literacy. There is no place in the world that loves a story better and the telling of the tale than in the south. As author River Jordan once told me and let me paraphrase her here, “Up north they hide away their crazy people in the attics and closets but here in the south we prop our eccentric characters up on the front porch for all to see.” Go River Go! Prop me up against the bookshelf and let me die!
We hope to send that message home dear readers, as we sashay down the book publisher rows of aisles. Yes, we do read EVERYWHERE in America, not just the East and West coasts! And who better, than a southern, blonde Texas hairdresser, and yes avid reader, to send that message to the big guns in publishing! Look out world, here come the Pulpwood Queens “where tiaras are mandatory and reading good books is the RULE!” Our sole mission is to get everybody reading, one person, one book club chapter, one author, and one book at a time. We also want to break some stereotypes and help that yet undiscovered author get discovered in a big way!
When I travel to NYC, my hope is to meet many of you there at Book Expo America. I invite you all to come give me a hug. That is what we do here in the south, we hug. Besides, it just makes you feel good to hug somebody. I also plan to see and experience as much of the city as I possibly can. Below is my itinerary for some of the things my publisher and I have planned. For those of you who will not be attending, I am determined on sending my daily experiences and musings to be posted on my www.pulpwoodqueen.com blog site. Whether you are an armchair traveler or travel in person, books can take you wonderful places. I know my life has always been all about the stories and all about the books. And just like one of my favorite children’s books by Dr. Seuss, “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!”
To read daily blogs of my trip to New York City, please go to www.pulpwoodqueen.com. To pre-order Kathy L. Patrick’s book and learn more of Beauty and the Book and The Pulpwood Queens, please go to the official website, www.beautyandthebook.com To read news of Jefferson, Texas and the surrounding area, please go to www.marioncountytexas.com
Tiara wearing, Book , and Book Expo America sharing,
Kathy L. Patrick
Permalink | |
Are You My Mother?
Remember that popular Dr. Seuss book, “Are You My Mother?”. I must have read it to my girls a kazillion times when they were little. They would laugh when the little big eyed bird would ask the bulldozer if it was his mother? Or the cow? Then finally the little bird found it’s mother who had been out catching a worm for her little baby bird, a very reassuring ending. “Again, momma, ” my baby birds would cry, “Read it again.”
That was many years ago but as Mother’s Day rolled around again this past Sunday I remembered fondly reading that book and asking myself the new question, “What makes a good mother?” Both my girls were gone on Mother’s Day. One on a end of school Jefferson Junior High student council educational trip to Atlanta, Georgia. I had been receiving phone calls daily giving a blow by blow account of each and every stop along the way. “Mom, Mom, we’re at the CNN studios in Atlanta.”It was very early my friends. Barely awake, I mumbled, “That’s nice Madeleine.”
“Mom, mom, I think we might get to see that old guy. You know the old guy?”“Do you mean Anderson Cooper, Madeleine. But he’s not that old, he just has prematurely grey hair.”“No, mom, mom, that old guy that interviews authors.”“Oh, Madeleine, you mean Larry King?”“Yeah, mom, that old dude.”
By now I’m laughing as I’m thinking it is way too early for this conversation about Larry King.On and on the past few days Madeleine would call in, (God Bless cellphones), and give me the latest. Mom, we just went to the Braves Museum and it was the best. I took my picture with Hank Aaron’s’ number and got a baseball, it was so cool and very informative.
Yes, she did say informative and that really got my attention. somehow thought her favorite part of the trip would be visiting the Margaret Mitchell house as how many times had I went on and on about “Gone With the Wind”? But no, her favorite part was Turner Stadium and going on the field.
I learned of her visiting Martin Luther King’s grave and his home and the Georgia Aquarium. By the time she got home, I felt as if I had gone on the trip with her and then of course, we had all the photographs she took of her trip.
Now the whole time this was going on with Madeleine we were in full throes of getting ready for the Jefferson Prom for Lainie. Lainie had designed her own dress and my good friend and Pulpwood Queen Kay Brookshire had created and sewn this prom masterpiece that was a knee length strapless concoction. The bodice was cream with black swirls, full satin skirt with side drapes, and cream tulle peeking out from under the hem. Very French and ooh la la. Now she wore this dress with a vintage black rhinestone necklace, bracelet, black sheer short gloves, cream lace anklets and black pumps. Her corsage was cream roses with black berries, black leather strips attached to a vintage arm cuff created by Timber Guy and florist extraordinaire, Dale Vaughn. Martha Stewart has nothing on the floral designs of Dale Vaughn. Her blonde hair was swept up to the side with side bangs and texture waves. She looked almost too grown up to me as where was my little girl? Her date had on a black pinstriped zoot suit complete with black hat and some kind of, was that a long watch chain. Not sure, but this was more like a theatrical production than prom. Well, she was going with all her friends from the Drama Club, Emily, Adam, Nick and Megan, what more could I expect? A long way from my Gunny Sak oatmeal colored prom dress with baby blue sprigs and sheer floppy hat on my long blonde parted down the middle hair. My date, Randy Click, who was 6’ 7” wore a baby blue ruffled tux. The theme to our prom was the song “Seasons in the Sun”. Lainie’s was suppose to be “Diamonds and Ice” but somewhere along the way they thought that sounded too drug related and changed it up somewhat. I laugh, as my junior year’s prom theme was “Stairway to Heaven”by Led Zeppelin. I guess things haven’t changed too much. Now on prom we left to change into blue jeans and work shirts to head out to a pasture party back in Kansas. All the kids Lainie went with changed to go Cyber bowling then out to eat breakfast at IHOP. As a mother the next day, I laughed as I cleaned out all the UNSPIKED Yahoo chocolate drinks out of my Inferno Red Pacific that I let the kids borrow for the prom night. Whew! I made it through another prom but still have one more for Lainie then Madeleine. My mantra is keep my kids safe, keep my kids safe. Lainie had to work the next day down at the General Store and Madeleine was returning home from Atlanta on the schools chartered bus. Both called to wish me a Happy Mother’s Day. Jay and I went to Lowe’s to buy sealer for the beaded wood walls of my NEW shop location then went to work at the new shop.
As he hooked up the telephone, internet, and television cables, I quietly painted in my new office. I had plenty of time to reflect on what is a mother. I came to this conclusion. A mother is one of the most important person’s in a child’s life. She may be the most important as she carries the child and feathers the nest. Mothers can make or break a child’s spirit. Leave that egg unattended and it may get snatched or broken. We are the ones totally responsible for teaching our children. We give our children wings, teach them how to fly, then send them on their way just like that little baby bird in the Dr. Seuss story. My girls are testing their wings and it seems those trial runs are working out well. They have big dreams, big hopes for the future. Their mother may have been slightly flawed, well make that a total basket case, but they seemed to have turned out pretty darn gosh good. As they flew out the door for school today, I see their futures looking bright. Who knows where they fly and will make their nests? I hope it is not too far but then again I can always fly, right? I would love to hear from you and what you think makes a great mother?Do you have a great mother story? Two of the happiest days of my life were when my girls were born, a miracle that often times I think we forget. Also God’s gift to us to give us that second chance to make things right in the world.
Tiara wearing, book sharing, and one proud momma,
Kathy L. Patrick
Founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs
Permalink | |
We Caught the Best Kind of RASH!
Every month I select a book, an author, whose work I find outstanding. They must be well written, give a new voice to literature, and be willing to venture to our neck of the woods. They also must be an author who is yet undiscovered in a big way. Author, Ron Rash was our special guest this month of May! I assure you, he will be famous soon. He is a writer to watch.
Ron is a poet who teaches creative writing and Appalachia studies at a southern university. He has never roamed to far from thearea in which he has been raised other than book tours. The first time Iand the Pulpwood Queens heard Ron read aloud to our book club we were hooked. If there has ever been an author who gave voice to literature, it is Ron Rash. That southern inflection and knowing just when to pauseand continue makes him a master at storytelling in its finest. The Pulpwood Queens voted Ron Rash our favorite read aloud author and I could not wait to have him back. I selected The World Made Straight as our Pulpwood Queen Book Club Selection and this was no easy read. This book addressed what happens when you take away rural peoples livelihood of being farmers that also happen to lack in education. We have ageneration of young people growing up trying to figure out what to do with too much time and no means of support. They turn to other cash crops which aren’t so legal.
I wanted to address the ever-growing population of our country, the rural south, that are at poverty level and no means of support. We havea generation of youth turning to drugs as a means of escape and support. Here in East Texas and my Marion County, we have a 39% of adult illiteracy. Most of these people live in the rural areas of the county with no means of transportation. These folks have children and have no skills to teach their children to do better. Education and literacy is the key to abject poverty, but how do we reach these people. Ron’s book raised questions of basically good people growing upand making bad choices. Our conversation was very lively and thought provoking.
There is no longer a black and white world just like their is no longer black and white television. We live in a world that is all shades of grey. Just this week a major story hit the front page of The DallasMorning News and my community. Crystal meth is now being made to flavor strawberry called sometimes Strawberry Quick to entice children in to anasty and horrendous drug habit. Made to look like the popular children’s candy Pop Rocks. Scary as I came from the generation of penny candy and getting your ten cents worth at the local candy counterat the grocery store. Candy that can now kill and ruin the lives of children. Books can enlighten and educate as well as entertain. Though Ron wrote a tough book, at least we are now all on the same page as what we can do as a book club to be aware of the dangers for our future generations.
Ron also wrote Chemistry and other Stories, a short story collection that I chose as our Bonus Book Club Selection published by Picador. I have to thank this publishing house for sending Ron to us yet again as you see he is a two time Pulpwood Queen Book Club Selection author. I would like to think I personally discovered Ron Rash but this is one Rash I wish to share with all of you. You would be doing yourself agreat disservice by not reading his wonderful books. In fact, Iencouraged the Queens to read his entire body of work as this author is amazing. Poetry, short stories, novels, he has something for everybodyand the best part is every book is a treasure.
We will have up on our website shortly at www.beautyandthebook.com the video interview I did with Ron Rash at my Beauty and the Book. And I must encourage you as a reader if he is in your neighborhood to go hearRon read in person. I know it was one of my most treasured authorminutes, listening to Ron Rash READ!
Next up, Kathy L. Patrick as a mom, what motherhood means to me and end of the school adventures with my two children, no make that my blossoming young women. With Mother’s Day just behind me, I think I now know what love is.
Tiara wearing and Book sharing,
Kathy L. Patrick
Founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Club
Permalink | |
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY JAYBIRD!
I get this phone call out of the blue.
“This is Kathy!”
“Kathy, this is Rue McClanahan, calling from Manhattan. Do you know who this is?”
Did I know who this is? Absolutely! Besides books, music, art, I love the theater. Rue McClanahan is a star of stage and screen. She probably has become most famous by her role on televisions /Golden Girls/ where she played the southern sex kitten Blanche Devereux. I have loved Rue McClanahan! She is smart, sexy, and always made me laugh out loud. I have always felt that an actor that can make you laugh out loud had major talent. It is easy to make someone cry but to laugh, now that is a gift.
We talked for quite some time. In fact, I was talking to Rue on my cell phone in my car in front of my shop so long that a couple who had gone into my shop for a haircut came back out to find me still on the phone. John and Debbie Chamberlain and I had quite a laugh over that, well we had a lot to say. Mostly, we were scheduling a time for Rue to come visit my book club, The Pulpwood Queens for a book signing of her latest,/ My First Five Husbands…And the Ones Who Got Away! / Great title and really much, much more than her life in marriage. This book was her memoir and I found the book fascinating.
The morning of the day I was to pick her and her assistant, Kathy up at the airport, my husband kissed me and wished me “Happy Anniversary”. I gasped and realized I had done it again. I had forgotten our big day when we got married 19 years before. Jay laughed as it has been our own running joke, either he forgets or I do. Sometimes we both forget and I think this is mainly because we married one Sunday evening on the sly thinking we were escaping everybody’s radar. We eloped. Now that is another story that I will tell at maybe our 50th Anniversary!
Rue came to Jefferson, Texas and besides treating her to lunch at The Hamburger Store and the best pie ever, I actually got to do Rue’s hair. What a pleasure! To say that her event which I called /An Evening with Rue/ was a success is an understatement. At the last minute, due to the fact that the sky was about to fall with a torrential storm and the numbers of presold tickets where climbing, we decided to move the event to the Banker’s Building generously donated to us for this event by The First National Bank of Hughes Springs here in Jefferson. We brought in extra chairs loaned to us by Jimmy Moore owner of East Texas Forest Products and got 13 volunteers from the Jefferson High School Drama Department to help run the event.
Rue loved the drama kids and to one boy in particular she gasped and stated, “Why Kathy, he is the spitting image of a young Rock Hudson.” I think Adam Brooks will never be the same. She even talked about the striking resemblance the next day. But the thing that impressed me the most was she gave each and every one of those kids an autograph after signing well over 100 books and having umpteen photographs with each and every attendee. Rue McClanahan is a trooper!
Rue had requested that I put on a skit just for her and we did. My best friends. Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guy, Pam McGregor, Carol Lancaster Lucky and Fred McKenzie helped me put together a skit that we titled /The Pulpwood Gals /as a tribute e to Rue starring on /The Golden Girls./ We were three middle age sisters, Earleen (me), Pearleen (Carol), and Sherleen (Pam) Boudreaux who had all come back to live with our MeeMaw (played hilariously by Fred) in her double wide trailer on Caddo Lake just outside of Jefferson, Texas.
You may go to www.easttexastownsonline.com to scroll down and view photos from the event. Photographer, Ron Munden has truly captured these “golden” moments and the photos are also available for purchase.
Now you may wonder what my husband did on our anniversary since I was so involved in the Rue McClanahan event? He was filming the event for your enjoyment and you may click on the link below to watch our skit or you may go to www.beautyandthebook.com and click on Videos to watch that Academy Award winning performance. Well, at least an East Texas Academy Award Winning performance, ha ha ha!
Rue’s book is climbing the charts and I certainly hope you will read her book. A fascinating life from a fascinating person and sends home the message that reading can be a wonderful entertainment. The following morning my friend and Pulpwood Queen Margie Dilday of Monroe, Louisiana escorted Rue and her assistant Kathy on to the rental car place with me in Marshall. As it took them quite awhile to get a car ready, we had plenty of time to chat and recap our event. Then Rue spotted this woman diligently working in the service department of the car dealership where we were to pick up the car. Rue told me, “I have to reward that woman in some way.” We walked across the parking and entered the building. As we approached this woman sweeping, I called, “Excuse me, I have someone I would like you meet.”
Rue asked her, “Have you ever watched The Golden Girls on television?”
“Yes ma’am,” she replied.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Yes, ma’am, you are Rue McClanahan.” Then it was our turn to be surprised.
“Ma’am, aren’t you from Ardmore, Oklahoma?”
“Well yes I am,” Rue answered surprised.
“Well ma,am I’m from just outside of Ardmore, Wilson, Oklahoma and they have all your things there in the museum. Your clothes and things.”
We found out her name was Nancy and Rue signed a Cadillac catalog from the dealership and gave it to the young woman with the broom. As we said our goodbyes, I had goosebumps. Of all the people to choose to go out of her way to meet, a fellow Oklahoma girl. You know that some things are just meant to be.
I live for the days when we have authors grace our doors. I think Rue McClanahan was truly my first brush with dealing with a major celebrity, a real live STAR! Quite frankly, it was a little frightening how many people recognized her and then asked for an autograph. From the moment she arrived at the airport to the minute she drove off in the rental car to continue her book tour we were approached by people wanting her autograph. I asked her about her about just that and she told me that that just comes with the territory. I hope I am that gracious at 73. Through her small acts of kindness I felt besides earning that “star” quality she also deserved a halo!
I’m not too sure what Jay thought of our 19th Anniversary but I had a blast. Jay has just resigned himself to the fact that he has married an obsessed reader. Anyway I can honestly say our marriage has never been boring, high drama to say the least. Now we are on to our next events with author, Ron Rash who I will be taking to visit our Shreveport, Louisiana chapter the evening of May 7th. Then again he will be featured Tuesday night, 6:30 p.m. at Beauty and the Book in Jefferson hosted by our Pulpwood Queens of East Texas. Ron has two books I have selected as Pulpwood Queen Book Club Selections, The World Made Straight and Chemistry and other Stories and being sent to us by Picador. Yes, the Jaybird will be filming that event too! Thank God Jay is not one who got away, ha ha! The official press release will be forthcoming but in the meantime go to our official website for all news pertaining to Beauty and the Book, The Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs, and book and author events.
Also if you are in the area, stop by and visit me at Beauty and the Book! I have these leopardlicious postcards that my publisher, Grand Central Publishing has sent to me to hand out to promote my up-and-coming book release, The Pulpwood Queens’ Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life. I would love to give you one and more if you promise to send them to all your friends! And if you see Jay tell him he is a saint for putting up with me. I know he would greatly appreciate it! Thank God he believes that reading and literacy are important too even when his wife booked an author event on their anniversary!
Tiara wearing and Book sharing, Kathy L. Patrick Hairdresser to the Authors Beauty and the Book 210 West Austin Jefferson, Texas 75657 903-665-7520 www.beautyandthebook.com , official website of The Pulpwood Queens www.pulpwoodqueen.com , official blog site of The Pulpwood Queens
Permalink | |
Reading Is NOT Important?
What did I just say? I will say it again as even I cannot believe it. Reading is NOT important. In fact, that is exactly what is being said by a favorite southern newspaper. The Atlanta Journal Constitution let go their book editor and is discontinuing their book section. Yes, you heard me right. A newspaper has decided that books, reading, and literacy are not important. In fact, having a book section is bad business, those pages are just not selling enough newspapers. They are considering plugging in The New York Times Book Reviews. I don’t know, but if I wanted to read The New York Times Book Reviews I would subscribe to The New York Times or check it out online for goodness sake.
Book reviews are not selling enough newspapers? Sensational news stories and color photos help sell papers. Why not just do a whole newspaper in pictures, maybe add some coloring pages. I also believe comics are something that everybody reads. What is happening to America? Here there are some of us doing everything we possibly can to promote reading in our homes, schools, book clubs, communities, and literacy not-for-profits and yet one of the leading southern newspapers wants to cut costs by doing way with the section that deals with reading?
As a bookseller, a reader, and now an author, I have always thought that The Atlanta Journal Constitution was the newspaper to look to for the best in good reads, known for it’s book section and book reviews. That newspaper has been considered one of the premier book review sections in the country especially for southern authors and readers. Sorry for the pun, but looks like covering books is gone with the wind.
Read the petition below that was sent to me by Shannon Byrne and look and see who has signed this petition. That is right, I am number 244. I was awed by all the authors and their comments. Feel free to sign and post a comment, I did. In this day and age I am dumbfounded by a newspaper that does not want to support books and reading. I thank God for The Marshall News Messenger everyday. Not one day goes by that they do not have a story on literacy, usually three or more. And guess what? They are both under the Cox newspaper umbrella. Go figure.
Tiara wearing and as God is my witness, book sharing, Kathy L. Patrick Founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs www.beautyandthebook.com To: The Atlanta Journal Constitution
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s recent decision to eliminate its book editor position and, possibly, its book review section is demoralizing beyond words. The AJC’s book section is one of the best-edited literary pages in the country. It provides Atlanta, which ranks #15 on the University of Wisconsin’s list of most literate cities in the U.S., with a powerful and necessary cultural dialogue. Under the astute guidance of the section’s editor Teresa Weaver, the books page has demonstrated an admirable commitment to both literature and nonfiction works which have grappled with some of America’s most complicated issues and themes.
Not only has the AJC’s book section helped to champion such important writers as Edward P. Jones, William T. Vollmann, and Colm Toibin, not to mention Paul Hendrickson and Monica Ali all of whom are now recognized as major literary voices, but it has struck a fine balance by also letting readers know, through in-depth interviews and event listings, about more popular authors who make Atlanta a stop on their book tours. If the major newspaper in a major market like Atlanta lacks a book section, then we may soon be missing authors, too, when publishers decide not to send their writers to a city where the primary forum of ideas and review is ignoring them.
I am a subscriber to and/or a frequent reader of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and I want the AJC to continue publishing a book section edited by Teresa Weaver that gives Atlanta a unique, thoughtful approach to books, one that represents a diverse array of voices, and is not simply fed by wire copy from the Associated Press or the New York Times.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
View Current Signatures
The Help Protect Atlanta’s Book Review Petition to The Atlanta Journal Constitution was created by and written by National Book Critics Circle (NBCCAtlanta@hotmail.com) . This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.
share: blogger del.icio.us http://del.icio.us/ digg facebook furl reddit slashdot send to a friend
Send Petition to a Friend - Petition FAQ - Start a Petition - Contributions - Privacy - Media Kit - Comments and Suggestions PetitionOnline - DesignCommunity - ArchitectureWeek - Great Buildings - Search www.PetitionOnline.com/atl2007/petition.html dg © 1999-2005 Artifice, Inc. - All Rights Reserved
Permalink | |
THE LADY WITH THE ALLIGATOR PURSE
When I was little, I always had a purse. I believe my first ones were the obligatory ones my mother purchased for me when my mother took me and my sisters to Zenisheck’s Department store or Frock and Bonnet to buy our Easter accessories; hat, gloves and purse. We then carried those little white bags every Sunday to church and for special occasions. They were very special and made us feel so grown up as our mother, grandmother, and all the women we knew carried handbags that were filled with wondrous things.
My grandmother’s handbag she carried in the crook of her arm. It was always black. Inside she had a handkerchief, a coin purse, lipstick, and these amazing little boxes of prescription pills. I loved to open and close the little boxes and look at the different colored pills. Of course, to me they looked like candy and then one day the temptation was just too great. I ate some of the little yellow ones. They were awful and bitter and my grandmother made a frantic call to Dr. Caitlin to find out what to do. Evidently, I was safe. I remember something about them being liver pills. I never ever took another pill. Mysterious, these handbags.
We even at recess jumped rope to the rhyme about a lady with an alligator purse. I always wanted an alligator purse and so now, I do.
The Lady with the Alligator Purse
Miss Lucy had a baby,
His name was Tiny Tim.
She put him in the bathtub,
To see if he could swim.
He drank up all the water.
He ate up all the soap.
He tried to eat the bathtub,
But it wouldn’t go down his throat.
Miss Lucy called the doctor,
Miss Lucy called the nurse.
Miss Lucy called the lady
With the alligator purse.
“Mumps,” said the doctor.
“Measles,” said the nurse.
“Hiccups,” said the lady
With the alligator purse.
Out went the doctor.
Out went the nurse.
Out went the lady
With the alligator purse.
I have been collecting handbags and purses ever since. Therefore, when I heard from an author named Barbara Hagerty and how she had written a book on the history of Handbags, I was intrigued. How Barbara heard about me is a more amazing story. I had had my friend and author, Pat Conroy’s new wife to my shop, Cassandra King. I had discovered Cassandra’s first book at the Mid-South Bookseller’s Association Convention in New Orleans, Making Waves in Zion. The story was about a young woman who inherits her aunt’s house and beauty salon in the south. The book seemed perfect for my book club, The Pulpwood Queens, and me as I have the only Hair Salon/Bookstore in the country, Beauty and the Book.
The publisher soon thereafter sent Cassandra to my shop and I wanted to give her something special. Something that would let her know just how much I love Pat Conroy and something that would be a celebration of their new life together. I gave her a purse. This purse was handmade by my friend and Pulpwood Queen, Constance Muller, artist and handbag designer. This purse was called a Floralina and they are doll purses, little fairy like dolls each wearing one of kind dresses where the dress skirt unzips in the back to hold are your special little things with a little matching cloth handle. These purses are for special occasions. My daughters and I have now collected nine of them. I gave her one to carry for special occasions.
Evidently, she carried it one day when she had lunch with her friend and author, Barbara Hagerty. Barbara just had to know where she got the purse, as she wanted to feature it in her book, Handbags: A Peek Inside A Woman’s Most Trusted Accessory. Four of Constance’s’ little Floralina were featured in the book. I had both Barbara and Constance in for a Floralina trunk show and book signing. That was years ago.
You can imagine my delight when Constance and her mother, Lois bopped into my shop to tell me that there was going to be a gallery show of the purses at the Texarkana Regional Arts & Humanities Council building in Texarkana. We traveled to Texarkana to see that exhibit this past Tuesday with my fellow bookseller, Fred McKenzie in tow. After a delightful lunch at the local eatery, The Cobbler Shop, we headed to TRAHCS. You can imagine our delight when we spied Constance’s floral festooned Floralina all in luscious shades of pinks in the glass display case. Interestingly enough, besides purses, there were vintage hats and dresses displayed on the walls. Constance took many photos to send to Barbara Hagerty of the gallery exhibit. Several of those she has sent to me for you to view below. This exhibit is traveling the country. For more information go to www.barbarahagerty.com or to www.constancemullerdesigns.com. I also got Constance to sign a limited quantity of the book Handbags to sell in my shop. To order your own signed copy, please go to my shopping page.
Reading can take you wonderful places and help you also discover beautiful things. A purse is, says Hagerty, “more than a mere utilitarian container, a purse is, I realize, an extension of the person who carries it, a miniature portrait in cloth, beads, plastic, leather or feathers.” The last two Floralina I purchased from Constance I let my daughters select for their birthdays. Helaina chose a black dressed Floralina with an Evening at the Opera theme. Madeleine chose a wedding Floralina. I am sure both will be carried on those very special occasions.
What do you keep in your purse? You would not believe what I found when I dumped the contents just now on the floor. Here is my inventory:
Billfold
Antique Mirror
Lipstick and various makeup
Paint color sample cards
Granite Crystals to add sparkle to paint
Paint Can opener
Tweezers
Infamous Video
Business cards
Phone Charger
Yesterday’s Marshall News Messenger
Discount coupon for Chico’s
Easter card from my Mother
Cell phone
Almost ten dollars in change
Black Cat Adhesive Bandages with Free Toy Inside
Sonic straw
Watch batteries
Troll doll
Travel hairpiece
Coated black rubber bands
Key chain with many keys and bling
One fancy swanky earring
Assorted pens crumbled bank and purchase receipts
Notebook with names of those who purchased tickets for Rue McClanahan event
Advanced galley for Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Yorday.
Yes, that all came from my purse and it is big. Not sure what those contents tell about me but I am sure someone can tell me. Do you have a purse story? I would love to hear from you. Happy Spring and if you are in or near Texarkana, treat yourself to this special galley show. For more information on TRAHCS go to www.arts.state.tx.us/CalTCA/calendar.cfm?&AssocID=639&header=1
Tiara wearing, Book, and Purse sharing,
Kathy L. Patrick
Founder of the Pulpwood Queens
P.S. And my favorite purse bedside’s Constance’s Floralina? A vintage black handbag redesigned with an Elvis theme complete with Elvis, guitars, tiaras and leopard lining made especially for me from author, Ruby Ann Boxcar significant other, Kevin, make-up artist and hair designer extraordinaire!
Permalink | |
Karaoke! What Does Karaoke Mean?
Friday afternoon I decided that I would have a birthday party for my husband, the Jaybird. I, as usual, fly by the seat of my skirt as his birthday was that night. It kind of snuck up on me.
We were all in the shop trying to figure out to what to buy a man who always buys himself anything that he really wants. Cologne, no, won’t wear it. A tie, been done a kazillion times. More than half the things I have bought him through the years and still in the box, in a drawer, or hanging in the closet.
For Christmas, I finally thought I had found him something he really wanted, a Tractor Supply megajama tool chest on wheels. Christmas morning I pointed to the back of my car as the thing was so heavy I could not get it out to hide in the garage for Christmas morning. Somehow, he hauled it out of the back of my Inferno Red Pacifica and proceeded to put all his tools inside. He spent all morning organizing his tools in that chest. I haven’t seen him go near it since.
So for his 46th I went all out, we were taking him to Auntie Skinner’s Riverboat Club in Jefferson for a night of Karaoke. I gave Jay part of his birthday gift, some Navy blue Crocs RX. We have a new podiatrist in town that has opened a shoe store called Footsteps and these shoes leave all other shoes on the rack. They may not be as stunning as Manolo Blanick’s or Jimmy Chou’s but as far as comfort, sublime.
I dropped Jay off at the bar as I ran to the Hamburger Store to buy some pies. Who says you need a cake for a birthday! It’s always pie for Jay, as pie does not get any better than this. I picked up two three-berry with rhubarb and ran to Brookshire’s to get some Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream and some candles.
When I walked into Auntie Skinner’s Jay was sitting at the bar with Mary Hileman. Now Mary is one of our favorite Jeffersonians, her son was my husband’s roommate at the University of Texas in Austin. His name is Jay too. We then moved to a table that Robbie, who was tending bar, had set up for us. I noticed this guy getting the Karaoke all set up. He seemed very gung-ho dancing and bopping around as he set up all the equipment. We ordered dinner, as we knew everybody was all coming a different time. Ballgames were in full swing in Jefferson and most of our friends had kids in tournaments. They would be in after the games.
Just as our food was served here came 88-year-old Fred McKenzie, my fellow bookseller, then my sister Karen and her husband, Richard. Jay told everyone at the table, “You know you are over the hill when an 88 year old gives you at 46 years old an over the hill card. Auntie Bev arrived just as the Karaoke began. I have never seen such a wide variety of Karaoke singers, professional Karaoke singers. They each had their own CD’s and would demand, “Track 7, and skip the intro”. All ages of singers, all types of dress from a guy wearing all black with red roses embroidered on his shirt, kind of a Mexican looking Elvis. Then this other dude caught our eye in the whitest, tightest jeans we had ever seen. He had on a white fringed shirt, black knee high cowboy boots, and a black cowboy hat. We could not take our eyes off this guy. The Karaoke guy started the evening singing some head banger song then a montage of Generation X’ers singing everything from David Allen Coe’s “You Never Call Me by My Name” to Evanescence’s “Call Me When You’re Sober”. Then Elvis took the stage.
The Elvis guy kind of had the look and kind of had the sound but as the evening progressed, he seemed to get better. I mean he had the dance moves but I am afraid that everybody rather had their beer goggles on. When he sang “Suspicious Minds”, Jay hollered at all of us at the table that if we closed our eyes, we could almost imagine being at Graceland. I yelled “NOT” as we all burst in laughter.
More friends showed up and then the guy in the black and white cowboy outfit took the stage. We had all been waiting to see what kind of talent he would display. You could have heard a pin drop as he took the stage. Evidently, everybody else was as curious too. He mumbled something about not being much of a singer. I thought, hmmm, with all these professional Karaoke singers in the building, this was a strange way to begin his performance. What happened next was something nobody expected to happen or ever hear or see in their lifetime.
The opening strains of “In the Jungle” began and then in that high pitched tone he sang, “In the village, the sleepy village, the lion sleeps tonight”. The crowd was dumbfounded. My sister leaned in and said, “Man, those pants must be really tight!” We just lost it. We laughed until we cried. That song was the last song in the world I ever dreamed that guy would sing.
As I looked around at everybody laughing and having a great time, I looked at Jay. It wasn’t a fancy birthday party, or one that you could put down in the history books, but we were surrounded by the people we love and everybody was having a blast. Jay may have not got that perfect “present” but he was presently having a very good time.
Birthdays are special and I hope that Jay remembers this birthday as a really great one. Later on our daughter joined us and I remember feeling that ole parent pride as she sang Peggy Lee’s “Fever”. Our friend Jim Gallant even took the stage with a big ole stogie and sang “Mack the Knife”. After the pie was shared, the ice cream had melted, we gathered the gifts, and headed for the house.
We will be talking about the cowboy, the night, and Elvis for days to come. I still laugh out loud when the main Karaoke guy yelled, “Elvis has left the building.” These are the stories that we treasure, and share, and pass on. And isn’t it always like my favorite quote, “The world is made up of stories, not atoms.” So why don’t you comment and share a story with me. A story that made you laugh until you cried, something unusual that may have happened to you, or that favorite birthday moment. I look forward to hearing from you.
Tiara wearing and Book sharing,
Kathy L Patrick
Founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs
www.beautyandthebook.com www.pulpwoodqueen.com
P.S. For those of you that would like to know, karaoke means singing to prerecorded music. It’s a form of entertainment in which amateur singers sing popular songs accompanied by a prerecorded music from a machine that may also display the words on a video screen.
—
Permalink | |
ANYBODY GOT ANY BOXES? BEAUTY AND THE BOOK MOVES UPTOWN!
My landlord stopped by for a haircut a couple weeks ago. She had previously told me that the historic house was going to be placed on the market, would I be interested in buying the property. Unfortunately, the price was so out of my price range, I had to decline. I knew the day would finally come when she was going to find a buyer for the house. Indeed it did because as she was about to leave my shop she told me, “I don’t know how to tell you this but I have two gentlemen who are buying my building.” Yes, it’s true, Beauty and the Book and The Pulpwood Queens Book Club home and headquarters is moving again!
I feel like I have come full circle. I just finished my first book ever, The Pulpwood Queens’ Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life to be published by Warner Books. The book begins with my former boss telling me, “I don’t know how to tell you this but we are going to have to let you go.” As your life goes flashing before your eyes and you see images of doom and gloom, I have to remind myself what I told everybody in my book. “When one door closes, another window of opportunity will fly right open”. And, it has? Moreover, this one has a picture window with the most incredible view!
I was at my favorite eatery, The Hamburger Store, with my girls grabbing a bite to eat the other night. We had ended our meal with a slice of their scrumptious three-berry pie with rhubarb topped with Blue Bell ice cream. You have to experience this dessert to believe it! As we paid our check, I noticed Jimmy and Pat Moore leaving too, the owners of East Texas Forest Products. We stopped to chat outside as the Moore’s are just about the nicest folks you will ever meet. They loaned me their brand spanking new double cab cherry red pickup truck and a 27- foot gooseneck trailer for our Pulpwood Queen “KATS” float in the Mardi Gras Parade. (We won the Duke of Hebe Award in the Parade with our rendition of Broadway’s CATS for this year’s theme Classic Tales!) Now they also gave us a barn to decorate our float in and a driver for the parade, hunky Chris McGregor who also just happens to be the son of one of my best friends and Pulpwood Queen Pam McGregor. What more could a Pulpwood Queen want to ride in style in a parade? Besides, nobody ever said, “Yes, ma’am”, anymore sexier than Chris McGregor as he helped me from the crack of dawn get the float ready and tear the float down at the end of the day. Woo, I lost my track of mind there for a second. I took him and his family all out to dinner afterwards to The Hamburger Store. Nothing better to reward yourself and others with than that pie.
Pat and Jimmy Moore did not win Citizens of the Year for nothing my friends. They are one of Jefferson’s finest families, always giving, always with a smile and a big heart. Anyway, Jimmy had heard that I was having to move and told me he thought he had a building that I could use. Would Jay (my husband) and I like to come by and see it?
Now Jimmy has restored the old Texaco filling station right on the old highway that use to run smack dab through the center of town. Absolutely darling with two vintage Texaco trucks parked right out front, every tourist and visitor that visit our historic city stops there for photo opportunities. You can almost picture uniformed Texaco attendants running out to service your car. The place is a snapshot picture back in time. Next door, he tore down the old house and moved in this turn of the century built Gulf storage building. He restored the outside, added a cute front porch, with a perfect view of our fair city. An old rock water garden and fountain that matches the rock Texaco building sits right in the front yard. Jimmy plans to stock it with fish. Now the inside was still like an old unfinished barn of a building. Jay and I took one look and we could see the possibilities. Perfect location and right on Polk Street, which is on the parade route in historic Jefferson. Beautiful views out both the front and back doors. On the front porch, you can see down three main thoroughfares and the building had twice as much space as the house I was in downtown.
After Jay and I talked we met again with Jimmy. Hands were shook and the deal was sealed. Beauty and the Book was moving up the street to 608 Polk Street, Jefferson, Texas, U.S.A!
You all we have been busy. Beauty and the Book is business as usual at 210 West Austin, but on the nights and weekends, we are getting our new little gem of a building ready for the big move. We have currently stripped, sanded the beautiful yet worn heart of pine floors. A little office is off to the side that I am painting in shades or Pulpwood Queen Pinks. The drafting style desk will be leopard and my office will house my Tarzan collection. I told Jimmy that this was it; I did not ever want to have to move again so we are pulling out all the stops on this building. Or should I say Jimmy Moore is as he has hired a contractor to get our building ready in record time.
I think you are going to be really surprised with out new look and home. We plan to have online photos and video of our EXTREME MAKEOVER! I was just up at Music City Texas for the Texas Music Awards and got a big ole bear hug from Head Timber Guy, Richard Bowden who also just happens to be President of Music City. We were talking about the building and I was telling him that I wanted to put a Moon on the bathroom door. Then I got to thinking I would put the Moon and the Stars, in honor of Richard, as that is the name of his house band. Would The Moon and the Stars be willing to come sign my bathroom door? I mean how could you turn down that honor! Richard laughed and said, “How about The Moon and the Stars come play for my RE-RE-Grand Opening! Y’all I hope you are ready. Stay tuned for the continuing saga of Beauty and the Book, home and headquarters for The Pulpwood Queens’, the largest “meeting and discussing’ book club in the world! We are going to have plenty of room and I promise, we’ll leave the porch light on for ya!
Tiara wearing and Book sharing,
Kathy L. Patrick
Hairdresser to the Authors
Founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs
Permalink | |
All our LIFE is a STAGE!
I grew up with a mother who wanted to be a movie star. She went to Hollywood at 19 to be discovered. My father followed her out there and proposed. My mother was not discovered as Schwab’s Drugstore or any other place in Hollywood. They eventually moved back home, this was in the 1950’s when Marilyn Monroe reigned. All my life I heard, the stories and therefore the stars in my mother’s eyes were burning bright in my little sisters and me. We loved Hollywood, the Oscars, and lived for the movies. I remember at a very young age seeing my very first musical and it was magical.
When I got in high school, we had a new drama teacher, Mr. Peacock. I swear that was his name. He was semi-famous as he was Broadway star Sandy Duncan’s first dance partner. If you have ever seen the film “Waiting for Guffman”, directed and starring Christopher Guest, he was that character. Played by Christopher Guest, he was this Broadway director who now has moved to small town Blaine, Missouri. This film could have been my hometown of Eureka, Kansas, or my new home town of Jefferson, Texas. You have to see that film, as it was the first thing I did when I got off the plane in NYC on my first day as a book publisher’s representative in the city for sales conference. I saw it in a little theater over by The Plaza Hotel and I have never laughed so hard and so loud in my life. I love and adore Christopher Guest and all of hilarious mockumentaries.
Now I cannot actually say the same thing about Mr. Peacock. He was more than a bit over the top and as my dad would say, a bit light in the loafers. It was more of a love/hate relationship. He flunked me one six weeks for Speech class, (which is a whole another story), but at the same time, I could not wait to sign up for The Thespians Club and try out for one of the plays.
I never had the gumption to try out for the big parts in the plays or musicals. I always was cast as the dancer, the sexy nurse, the dancer; you get the picture, the bit parts. I loved it and threw my whole self in productions of “Little Abner”, “Bye Bye Birdie” and various plays. After I married and had my two girls, I read in the paper that there was going to be try-outs for the musical “Meet me in St. Louis”. There were many children’s’ roles in production so I thought as a family project we would all go and try-out. My daughter’s Laine, Madeleine, and I were all cast. I was thrilled, how fun was this going to be. I was more than a bit concerned as to play, if you remember the movie starring Judy Garland, Judy’s older sister who was 19. The young man who was to play my love interest was in high school. Now I was in my 40’s at the time and considered this quite a stretch. I also felt more than a tad uncomfortable batting my eyes and flirting with this young man at play practice.
After the first practice, the next morning I drove to the bank; where his mother worked, and made her give me verbal permission that it was okay for me to play this role with her 16- year-old son. I had read enough stories about older women hitting on high school boys. They went to prison. We had a good laugh about it.
Laine had one of the lead children’s roles in that musical and went on that year to win Best Child Actor in our local WYNOY Awards given out by the Opera House Theater Players. WYNOT is TONY spelled backwards, how clever. She was bitten by the theater bug. Madeleine had a walk on role with one line and we all really just had a blastie blast doing this musical. We were hooked. What fun, what joy!
We went on to all being in another Opera House Player Production “I Remember Mama”. Then I was cast, with two of my other best friends and fellow Pulpwood Queens, Beverly Bradley and Carol Lancaster Lucky, in the hysterical play “Laundry and Bourbon”. Then we all went on to all play in the Excelsior Players “A Christmas Carol”. Some of my happiest days were going to the practices with the girls.
As I got busy running my Beauty and the Book and my Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs and all the other things that I do, I stepped reluctantly off the stage. Actually, I was probably yanked, as I continued to encourage my girls to get involved with their drama departments at their school. Madeleine did her first U.I.L. play this year and got a starring role as the villain in a melodrama, Bertrand Oleander. She was a hoot, looking a like a cross between Charlie Chaplin and Snidely Whiplash, in her too big black suit, her twirly black mustache, cape, cane, and top hat. I laughed my fool head off. She won All-Star Cast at their very first U.I.L school competition, “Egad, What a Cad”.
Lainie just got back last night from her U.I.L competition and won Best Actress of all the schools for their high school play, “Gammer Gurton’s Needle”, and now they going to district U.I.L. this Saturday. An amazing feat because she too played a leading role as a boy, Diccon, in that production with all the cast talking in a cockney accent.
Why I decided to write about our theater experiences is because I have seen before my very eyes what happens when you get involved in the arts. The greatest thing a parent can do is teach your children how to fly and then give them wings to go there own way in the world. My girls have gained a confidence that I am not sure they would have had if it had not been for the theater experience. Now as I watch my little birds fly off in the world, I can enjoy the drama that unfolds.
All my life I have been an avid reader. I happen to think playwrights and theater is just another aspect of the reading experience. To read a play or musical and see it come to life before your eyes is a treat for all. When I was a child these, big musical productions would come to the high school. From kindergarten to junior high students would be bused to the high school to join their students to watch “Peter and the Wolf” , “Hans Brinker and the Golden Skates”, and “Toby Tyler”. We each paid 10 cents to see those shows. I will never forget the costumes, the music, and those storybook characters all brought to life.
April 24th, I have one the premier actors of Broadway stage, television, and film coming to my Beauty and the Book, the delightful and vivacious Rue McClanahan to talk about her new book “My First Five Husbands…and The Ones That Got Away”. Rue has asked me to put on a skit just for her, my fellow Pulpwood Queens, and those in attendance. Carol Lancaster Lucky, Pam McGregor, Timber Guy Nelson Collier, and I will be doing just that for all that attend. We call our skit “The Pulpwood Gals” where three middle age sisters come to live with their Meemaw (played by Nelson) in a doublewide trailer on Caddo Lake. It is kind of our East Texas version of “The Golden Girls” as a tribute to Rue McClanahan who starred in that television show as the infamous Blanche.
Tickets are $30.00 and include refreshments and the book for you to have signed personally by Rue. Come support the arts and I can guarantee you will get some good laughs and meet one of most outstanding American actress to walk the stage in theater and grace our film and television screens today! Call 903-665-7520, email me at Kathy@beautyandthebook.com, or stop by Beauty and the Book to get your tickets.
All our life is a stage and I encourage all of you to support your local arts and theater programs. There is nothing more thrilling than to have the lights go down, the audiences grow quiet, and the velvet curtain lift to unveil a story about to unfold.
Tiara wearing, Book and Theater Sharing,
Kathy L. Patrick
Founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs
Permalink | |
SINGING MY HEART OUT!
“Remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. “Your father’s right,” she said. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy … but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” Quote from the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
In my life, I have seen many people who have obsessions. I remember when I was a kid, crazed girls screaming over The Beatles, which I found silly. Teenagers, my daughters age, are going absolutely ballistic these days over the musical group, My Chemical Romance. I have seen grown men dress in women’s lingerie attending day after day the film The Rocky Horror Picture Show when I was first starting work as a hairdresser. Year after year I have viewed at each new release of a Star Wars movie teens, and adults dressing as Luke Skywalker to Darth Vader. I guess we all have secret fan clubs for something or someone. My not-so-secret obsession has always been about authors and their books. My all-time favorite? To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee of course.
I do not know when I first read the book. I saw the film first and instantly found myself in the character of Scout. I related so well to the youngest Finch, I became an instant fan of the film. Every spring my mother, sisters, and I would watch the movie piled on our green nubbly divan as the story unfolded on our old black and white Curtis Mathis television. I still get chills when Dill, Jem and Scout all dare each other to go up on to Boo Radley’s porch. We did not have any next door neighbors like the Radley’s. Still, as we moved a lot, we had someone or something that scared the bejesus out of us in our neighborhood. My sisters and honed in on those eccentric characters like flies to honey.
I read this book usually once a year in the spring and it’s that time. As I reread the pages, I am amazed at what new revelations unfold for me at each reading. I highly recommend everybody do the same in this country. The book to me, no matter how many literary analysis’s are done, is just the story that Harper Lee fictionalized of her experiences growing up in Monroeville, Alabama. Do I think she was trying to teach us of social injustice and all the other many tangents that some academia who has studied her work for their doctoral thesis explain in minute detail? Maybe subconsciously, I just happen to think she just told us one of the greatest stories ever told period.
I have collected snippets of information on Harper Lee, the book, and film for years. Not to study and critique her underlying subliminal messages, but as kind of like the scrapbook that my mother kept when she was a teenager of her favorite Hollywood stars. I collect these newspaper clipping and stories just because I loved her written words. Because of course, I did finally discover the book, probably at the Eureka Carnegie Library of my youth back in Kansas when an astute teacher recommended I go there after they overheard me blathering on about the film. When I became an adult and found you could buy books. Lo and behold not just check them out at the library, that was one of the first books I purchased for my ever growing library. My treasures, I think I have about 6 copies of To Kill a Mockingbird, each a different printing, different cover, and some commemerating an anniversary edition. I have those books stacked on my bedside table to keep them close and for easy reach for reading. So when I heard that not one but two movies were coming out on Truman Capote and Harper Lee, I could hardly wait in anticipation of their story unfolding on film.
Capote debuted first and won Philip Seymour Hoffman an Oscar. Then came the film Infamous which if an actor has ever come as close to portraying a character better than Toby Jones as Truman Capote, I’m not sure who it would be. He was Truman Capote. And I thought Phillip Seymour Hoffman had him nailed. Sandra Bullock, before I watched the film, I thought was sorely miscast but I was wrong. She was incredible and it changed my opinion of her as an actress. Her quietness and accent delighted me. Both films were great and that is something I don’t say very often. Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird sets the standard to me for great film. Capote and Infamous in turn follow suit. That must be a first or am I biased as concerning the subject matter. I probably am.
I will continue returning to my reading of To Kill a Mockingbird just as I do every year, much like the birds returning back north in the spring. Yes, I’m singing, singing it’s praises to high heaven. Won’t you join me in reading To Kill a Mockingbird? To me it would be a sin if you didn’t.
Tiara wearing and Book sharing,
Kathy L. Patrick
Founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs
Permalink | |
SPRING HAS SPRUNG AND IT’S COMING UP BOOKS!
I can hardly sleep when there is a change of seasons. A thrill runs through my body when I see those birds headed back north, first sight of that unexpected color flash of a daffodil bloom, and the mailings of spring advance galley books stacked in my mailbox. Spring for me means NEW BOOKS and I can hardly get the mailers opened fast enough to find the treasures inside to read. The following are books just recently released that give more than the promise of spring for great NEW READS!
Author, teacher, Rickey Pittman has been coming to Beauty and the Book and my author events for years. He was recently here for our annual Girlfriend Weekend and I previewed an advance galley at the literary festival. What a talent and what a story! If you love southern confederate civil war history, Rickey is the man to talk too. His latest book will be a children’s book Jim Limber Davis, a Black Orphan in the Confederate White House.
Check out this link to the recent news story in the Monroe, Louisiana Newspaper: http://www.thenewsstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070305/NEWS01/703050313
One author in particular always seems to me, as if she has written her books specifically for my book club. Cassandra King, a three time Pulpwood Queen Book Club Selection Author has a new book, The Queen of Broken Hearts which is certain to also become a Pulpwood Queen favorite. I know that if you read just one of Cassandra’s books you will too become a big fan and she is as sweet and intelligent as all of her women characters. We bow to the feet of an author QUEEN! I give her latest book our highest mark, 5 diamonds in our Pulpwood Queen Tiara! Check out her website at: http://www.cassandrakingconroy.com/
When I got an email from Cathryn Michon to help bring books to libraries in Louisiana following the tragic events of Hurricane Katrina and Rita, I made a plea to my Pulpwood Queen authors to help. And help they did by sending books on to those libraries, authors were very generous to help those in need. Now I just got another email, would I donate books to the Camel Book Mobile? Yes, I would and so should you. Author, Masha Hamilton has written a book called The Camel Book Mobile. Here is some of the copy from her website, http://www.mashahamilton.com/
This is the mantra of Fiona Sweeney, the heroine of Masha Hamilton’s inspiring new novel The Camel Bookmobile, a tale about an American librarian who leaves Brooklyn to work for a relief organization in Africa that sends books on the backs of camels to forgotten villages. Fiona’s intentions are entirely pure but, when the bookmobile causes a feud among the nomadic tribe it aims to help, she realizes her good deeds may come with a high price. Now this book is made for the Pulpwood Queens as we are on a mission to promote literacy. This woman is not only talking the talk, but walking the walk. Do check out that website and won’t you help on her mission, see below.
Book donations for the Camel Library can be mailed to:
Garissa Provincial Library
For Camel Library Librarian in Charge, Rashid M. Farah
P.O. Box 245
Garissa, Kenya
Won’t you spring into action by not only reading good books but promoting literacy too. The authors whose books I read and who grace my doors and book festivals inspire me. They inspire me to get up out of my comfortable winged back recliner where I love to read and write and do some good works too. Let’s clean out the closets and give to those in need. Do we really need to have all this stuff and yes, all these books. My goal this spring is to try to uncomplicate my life a bit and give, give, give. I have so much and so do all of you. Let’s take action this year and do good works.
Tiara wearing and book sharing, Kathy L. Patrick http://www.beautyandthebook.com/, and check out all the NEW Author and Artists links! We’re revamping the website to make it easier for you to navigate and to bring you the best in reading today!
Permalink | |
Those Queens Can Shimmy submitted by Amy Wallen
Loralva got all the way to the Pulpwood Queen Book Festival (http://www.beautyandthebook.com/) and found out that due to one of them glitches that God only knows the true meaning of, MoonPies couldn’t be found for sale. But she made the best of it. How can you not, she figured, when all the ladies are wearing tiaras and her all time favorite of fabrics—leopard skin. She donned her rhinestone-encrusted western vest, grabbed her embroidered bowling bag purse and whooped and hollered all night long at the Hair Ball. She chose her fuschia Carol Channing wig for the occasion and partyed with the likes of Tippy Hedren, Marilyn Monroe, Lucille Ball and all sorts of other dead Hollywood types. Those Pulpwood Queens sure know how to boot scoot. The Pulpwood Queen Mum, Kathy Patrick, both proprietress of Beauty and the Book Hair Salon and Bookstore and founder of the Pulpwood Queen weekend was not only Loralva’s favorite tiara-wearing, book-loving queen, but someone to admire considering she traveled everywhere with the back of her car loaded down with a chair in the shape of a giant velour high-heeled leopard skin slide and a bottle of red fingernail polish the size of an armadillo. Plus, that lady knows a good read almost better than Loralva knows a good man. Not to mention she’s probably read just as many books. When Loralva got back to Devine, she climbed up on top of her mobile home, stood right next to her TV antennae, and announced to the entire trailer park that every reader within shouting distance should join the Pulpwood Queen book club.
Permalink | |
Will Clarke Appearing at Beauty and the Book!
Will Clarke Appearing at Beauty and the Book! Jefferson, Texas - March 13th, 6:30 p.m.
Calling all L.S.U. fans! The Pulpwood Queens of East Texas are having a TOGA PARTY to celebrate our special guest author, Will Clarke’s new book “The Worthy”! The event will be at Beauty and the Book a.k.a. Theta Eta Pie, the only Hair Salon/Bookstore now sorority in the country! When I read Will’s book, I thought it screamed the movie “Animal House” meets “Carrie”! The main character is killed in hazing incident as a pledge at his fraternity house. He comes back as a ghost for revenge!
Since Jefferson, Texas has been voted the most haunted small town in Texas I thought the “ghost” character in “The Worthy” would fit in nicely. Will’s first book, “Lord Vishnu’s Love Handles” sold the film rights to the creators of the Academy Award winning film “Sideways’. His new book has sold the film rights too and will be filming in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on the L.S.U. campus. Will now lives in Dallas with his wife and two boys but he is a Shreveport, Louisiana native. For more information on Will Clarke, please go to www.booktourvirgin.blogs.com or www.willclarke.com . Since Jefferson, Texas has been voted the most haunted small town in Texas I thought, the “ghost” character in “The Worthy”, would fit in nicely.
Will has sold the film rights for his first book, “Lord Vishnu’s Love Handles” to the creators of the Academy Award winning film “Sideways’. The rights to his new book has also been sold and is currently being filmed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on the L.S.U. campus. Will now lives in Dallas with his wife and two boys but he is a Shreveport, Louisiana native. For more information on Will Clarke, please go to www.booktourvirgin.blogs.com or www.willclarke.com.
Also, our Pulpwood Queen Book Club Selection Author of the Month, Margaret Sartor will be calling in to talk to us about her book, “Miss American Pie”. Margaret teaches at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina and is nationally exhibited and published photographer. Photographer Tammy Cromer Campbell will be in attendance to capture our “toga” moments! Remember this is Spring Break month and we will have an in turn “worthy” prize for the BEST TOGA attire in attendance and\nit does not include a paddle! Reminds me of the song, “It makes me want to shout, Yeah ee yeah!” Toga on over Pulpwood Queens and bring a “worthy” Louisiana dish for our buffet dinner. Those not members are welcome but there is a $10.00 per person for the event and dinner.
Please call to reserve your ticket for this event, 903-665-7520.
INTERNATIONAL BOOK CLUB AUTHOR EXTRAVAGANZA
July 13 - 15th, 2007As a fundraiser for The Friends of the Municipal Auditorium, Working to preserve and revitalize Shreveport’s Historic Municipal Auditorium, Elvis Presley Avenue, Shreveport, Louisiana 71165, www.stageofthestars.com
Here is the basic information about the first ever-International Book Club Author Extravaganza to be held in Shreveport, Louisiana, July 13 - 15, 2007 that I am putting together as a fundraiser for The Friends of the Municipal Auditorium.
This event will be three days of author panels, sessions, and workshops, and entertainment. Our hope is that this event will be the largest book club gathering in the world and feature some of the best book club authors in the world! Our goal is also to besides promoting literacy; help restore this magnificent historical building back to its full glory! The Municipal Auditorium built in the 1920’s was an Art Deco structure and cultural arts center of the community. Many Broadway plays were performed on its stage and was also the home of The Louisiana Hayride, which gave the auspicious beginnings to such musical legends such as, Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, and Dolly Parton. The Municipal gives wonderful historic tours and has fabulous museum that is open to the public. Check www.stageofthestars.com for more information.
Friday, we will feature children’s authors, Saturday, authors of all genres, and Sunday, and inspirational authors. We will also be having writing workshops and special sessions to showcase authors that I have read their books and hand picked for this event. Authors invited to attend are by invitation only as we want the best authors to be represented for what we see as the largest book club gathering in the world!
The main auditorium floor will have the author and publisher tables and Barnes and Noble providing books for sale. We plan to have workshop sessions that will have authors giving demonstrations and writing workshops, and more. Full schedule is in the works and will be posted as soon as possible upon confirmation of authors attending. We will have two nights of entertainment. Friday is to be announced. Saturday night we will have a Dance for Literacy where attendees can come dressed as their favorite author or book character. The opening act will be “The Pink Collar Tour” which is a group of southern women authors who will be telling stories including River Jordan, Kit Frasier, Denise Hildreth, Susan Reinholdt, and me! Sunday we will feature four time Dove nominee and Nashville musical artist and celebrity, Jonathan Pierce! Other authors confirmed at this time are Carolyn Jourdan, Doug Marlette, Michael Morris, Louise Schaeffer, Adrienne Baribeau, Tommy L. Cook, Cassandra King, Will Clarke, Ronlyn Domingue, David Marion Wilkerson, J. Brooks Dann, Jason Headley, Rickey Pittman and many, many more authors in the works.
Starbucks has signed on as one of the vendors. We will be selling vendor tables and independent author tables too that will circle the hallway galleys of two floors that lead to the main auditorium book festival floor. We plan to highlight some of the best vendors in the area with items for sale that will also allow the perfect shopping experience for booklovers and all the festivals attendees. Please contact Mandy Perdue, Executive Director of The Friends of the Municipal Auditorium if you are interested in being a vendor, (see contact information below).
As you enter the Municipal Auditorium, we will have the Box Office for tickets and be featuring The Pulpwood Queens Book Club, The Shreveport Times and so far the not-for-profits The Friends of the Municipal Auditorium, Music City Texas, Shreve/Memorial Library with more to be announced. The NEW Hilton Hotel on the Boardwalk is going to be the OFFICIAL hotel for this event as they are providing free shuttle service to and from the event facility at certain times throughout the book festival. The Friends of the Municipal Auditorium is now offering an EARLY BIRD SPECIAL of $150 to all the book festival events, special sessions, workshops, and entertainment until May 1, 2007. Please contact Mandy Perdue at The Friends of the Municipal Auditorium (see contact information and form below) to purchase your V.I.P Packet! Individual tickets are also available for pre-purchase, (see below) for General Admission Only, Author Workshops, Author Panels, Author Sessions, and Entertainment.
After May 1, 2007, the V.I.P. Packages will available for $250.00.The following sponsorship packages are available to purchase to help support this fundraiser and literacy event with all monies going to The Friends of the Municipal Auditorium:
STAGE OF THE STARS SPONSORSHIP PACKAGES:SUPER STAR SPONSORSHIP V.I.P. PACKAGE $5,000 and up: Top Official Sponsor for all events and includes: Top Billing on all print and media events, book bags and t-shirts ( Largest logo and ad, also will be featured on website, www.beautyandthebook.com), 8 V.I.P. passes to ALL author and book events and corporate table for both Friday and Saturday night entertainment events. Will receive 8 official t-shirts and book bags.
PRODUCER SPONSORSHIP V.I.P. PACKAGE $2,500 and up: Official Sponsor for all events and includes: Billing on all print and media events, book bags and t-shirts (Medium logo and ad, also will be featured on website, www.beautyandthebook.com)4 V.I.P passes to ALL author and book events and to both Friday and Saturday night entertainment events. Will receive 4 official t-shirts and book bags.
DIRECTOR SPONSORSHIP V.I.P PACKAGE $1,000 and up: Billing on all print and media events, book bags and t-shirts (Small logo and ad, also will be featured on website, www.beautyandthebook.com), 2 V.I.P. passes to ALL author and book events and to both Friday and Saturday night entertainment events. Will receive 2 official t-shirts and book bags.
HEADLINER SPONSORSHIP V.I.P PACKAGE $250 (for Authors, Speakers, or Musical Artists):Listing of name on t-shirts, website and program.1 V.I.P. pass to ALL author and book events including Friday and Saturday night entertainment events. Space at author tables on event floor for book signing and will receive one official t-shirt and book bag.
STAGE HAND SPONSORSHIP V.I.P. PACKAGE $250 (for attendees to the event):1 V.I. P pass to all author and book events including Friday and Saturday night entertainment events. Will receive one official t-shirt and book bag.
General Admission Tickets at the Door: $10.00 per person for adults$ 5.00 per person for students. Free for children under 12.
Special Sessions and Author Workshops to be announced: Advance Tickets: $20.00 per person for adults,$10.00 per person for students,$5.00 higher at the door and tickets will be limited so purchase yours today!
Tiara wearing, Book, Author, and Festival sharing,
Kathy L. Patrick
Founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs
Permalink | |
James Patterson PageTurner 2006 Award Winners!
Dear Pulpwood Queens and Beauty and the Booklovers!
It’s OFFICIAL! The James Patterson PageTurner 2006 Awards were announced today and I was one of them! Now there is no stopping me on my literacy promoting adventures! Onward and upward literacy promoting soldiers!
Read below the press release that I have copied and pasted to this letter!
Tiara wearing, Book, and Award sharing, Kathy L. Patrick
Founder of The Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Michelle Aielli Heather Rizzo James Patterson Publicity Manager Executive Director of Publicity, Little, Brown & Co. 212-364-1223 212-364-1495
WORD SPREAD WIDER, THE STAKES GREW HIGHER. THIS YEAR’S WINNERS WILL ASTOUND YOU
JAMES PATTERSON ANNOUNCES THE 2006 $500,000 PAGETURNER AWARD WINNERS
New York, NY, March 2, 2007: James Patterson announced today — NEA’s national Read Across America day — the 39 winners of the 2006 James Patterson PageTurner Awards, who will receive cash prizes totaling $500,000. Among the winners are libraries, schools, bookstores, and innovative individuals and organizations that go to extraordinary lengths to spread the joy of books and reading across the country.
From the Washington Center for the Book in Seattle, who started the breakthrough — and now widespread — “One Book” program, to the nonprofit organization 826 National, which works tirelessly to encourage creativity in children of all ages by providing enthralling reading and writing experiences, this year’s winners come from 34 cities in 23 states, and their amazing efforts reach as far as troops stationed in the Middle East and underprivileged children in Botswana, Africa.
Mr. Patterson is also honoring an elementary school principal who got his students geared up about reading by skydiving out of a plane; a New Orleans literary festival that continues to bring excitement and fun to a community still dealing with the effects of Hurricane Katrina; a California “Bookseller of the Year,” dedicated to her cause since 1977, who hosts more than 600 author events a year; a Queens librarian who let kids in her community dye her hair purple to prove that reading actually can be fun; an African American Read-In program that brings in local heroes such as a pro football Hall of Famer turned Supreme Court justice to get the community excited about reading; and a national organization whose mission is to provide as many underprivileged children with their “first book” ever. And the overwhelming list goes on.
James Patterson says, “I love being able to help those who spread the word that reading a book is still one of the great joys in our lives.” This year’s winners truly embody the spirit and energy of the PageTurner Awards — to spread the excitement of books and reading as far and wide as humanly possible. And for that, we salute them all!
The 2006 James Patterson PageTurner Award winners are:
$100,000 PageTurner of the Year Award:
Washington Center for the Book Seattle, WA In 1996, well-known librarian and radio host Nancy Pearl (one of last year’s PageTurner merit winners and the model for a librarian action figure to boot!) helped create a fun, innovative concept: what if one entire city could come together to read, learn about, and enjoy the same book? And so, two years later, “If All of Seattle Read the Same Book” was formed — literally bringing the whole city together through the power of one book. Run by the Washington Center for the Book and retitled “Seattle Reads,” this program soon caught on nationwide, and now over 450 different locations across the country, ranging from Los Angeles to the nation’s capital, host their own “One Book” events.
$50,000 PageTurner Champion Awards:
University of Minnesota’s African American Read-In Minneapolis, MN Now in its 18th year, the African American Read-In at the University of Minnesota is an annual celebration aimed at incorporating black literature into the community during Black History Month each February. With literary workshops, school-oriented programs, and noted speakers — like local hero Alan Page, a pro football Hall of Famer and current Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court—the Read-Ins affect at least 12,000 community members each year in Minnesota alone, with the ultimate goal of helping participants to develop a lifelong love of reading together as a family and as a community.
826 National San Francisco, CA Based in San Francisco but with offices in New York, L.A., Seattle, Ann Arbor, and Chicago, this nonprofit organization, cofounded by author Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius), is focused on improving children’s reading and writing skills while encouraging creativity. The organization is so popular that even famous funnymen like Jon Stewart, Ben Stiller, and Will Ferrell have joined in, lending their names and time to help raise money at 826 fund-raisers across the country.
All Hallows High School Bronx, NY All Hallows High School is located in the poorest congressional district in the United States. Due to a dedicated staff, a required “Drop Everything and Read” (D.E.A.R) program, numerous reading and writing-based curriculums, as well as a strong schoolwide mentoring program, All Hallows High has increased SAT verbal scores by 16% and AP English scores by 40% since its inception. In 1998 the entire graduating class was accepted into four-year colleges, and the school has since maintained a near-perfect college acceptance rate. With national outlets like the Wall Street Journal highlighting their phenomenal progress and visits from the likes of native New Yorker film director Spike Lee, All Hallows High is garnering attention each year for its ability to educate and nurture students to become the best they can be.
First Book Washington, DC First Book was founded in 1992 with the sole mission to get a first book into the hands of every child that comes from an underprivileged family. In their first year they gave out over 12,000 books; now they work with over 1,300 communities nationally, with outreach and book distributions close to 40 million. Countless celebrities, like Reba McEntire, Whoopi Goldberg, Susan Sarandon, and even former Secretary of State Colin Powell have helped to support First Book — named one of ten “Gold Star” charities by Forbes magazine in 2003 — with their worthy cause over the years.
$10,000 PageTurner Par Excellence Awards:
The Dollywood Foundation’s Imagination Library Nashville, TN Actress/Singer/Songwriter Dolly Parton started this program in 1996 as a way to help children in her hometown realize a love of reading from the earliest age possible. The idea has grown into an initiative that gives out over 2.5 million books annually. Currently, over 600 cities in 40 states have implemented the Imagination Library. In 2000, Dolly received an Association of American Publishers (AAP) honor, and just last year she donated the proceeds of her cookbook sales to benefit the library.
Family Literacy Foundation San Diego, CA Since winning a 2005 James Patterson PageTurner award, the Family Literacy Foundation has increased its outreach by almost 100,000 people. Through its main reading-related programs, United Through Reading, Building Bridges with Books, and Youth Reading Role Models, the foundation has clocked over 204,000 volunteer hours working to reinforce and foster relationships between children and their parents, family members, and friends through reading. Even First Lady Laura Bush has become involved, serving as the honorary chair of the United Through Reading program, which allows deployed U.S. soldiers to read books to their children via video, enabling troops to stay connected with their loved ones back home.
Books for Boys at the Children’s Village Dobbs Ferry, NY Another 2005 James Patterson PageTurner winner, Books for Boys at the Children’s Village is a unique and innovative program that utilizes a staff of teachers, librarians, and volunteers to read and share books with at-risk youth ages 6-21. Their projects include a visiting author series, internship programs that allow college students to work with the boys over the summer, and various mentoring programs. Even CSI: New York actor-author Hill Harper stopped by recently to read and talk to the boys!
Pam Shelton, Botswana Book Project Botswana, Africa Pam Shelton is a United States citizen who quit her job after 25 years as a Vermont librarian to move to the African country of Botswana. Pam set out to create much-needed libraries in schools throughout Botswana. Her mission was to get books shipped into the country so that children of all ages could learn to read — something they can’t do if they do not have the resources — and it proved to be no small feat. With the help of Books for Africa, she has brought and distributed more than 300,000 books in Botswana in just under 10 years.
Behind the Book New York, NY The nonprofit organization Behind the Book works with low-income youth in New York City public schools, grades K-12. Its motto is “Creating opportunities for tomorrow through creative reading experiences today.” The organization reinforces the excitement and importance of reading while emphasizing literacy skills and offering unwavering support to children working to further their education. Behind the Book was honored last year as a James Patterson PageTurner winner, and since then the organization has almost doubled its outreach.
Purvis J. Behan P.S. 11 Brooklyn, NY P.S. 11 is a New York City public school located in Brooklyn. A Title 1 school (set to ensure the academic achievement of the underprivileged) with close to 500 pre-K to fifth-grade students, the school lacks the necessary funds and donations to keep its library and classrooms stocked with books. Despite this, the school has continuously dedicated its time and energy to promote reading and literacy not only to the students, but to their parents and community as well. It holds an annual Book Bash for all students (which has raised thousands of dollars to improve the school’s library) as well as an annual Pajama Party (hugely popular with the students, who come to the gym-turned-huge-slumber-party dressed in their pajamas) and Read-a-thons aimed to teach kids that reading is an important, lifelong, and, most of all, fun part of their futures.
$5,000 PageTurner Award winners: Listed in alphabetical order
2nd Chance Books, Austin Public Library Austin, TX
Books for Soldiers Winston-Salem, NC
Debra McKee, Laundry Basket Library Mansfield, OH
Decatur Book Festival Decatur, GA
Elaine Petrocelli, Book Passage Corte Madera, CA
Emma Rodgers, Black Images Book Bazaar Dallas, TX
Harlem RBI’s REAL Kids Summer Literacy Program New York, NY
Huckleberry Hill School, Fit and Lit Program Lynnfield, MA
Jill Lamar, Barnes & Noble New York, NY
John and Sharon Bushell Homer, AK
Kathy Patrick, Beauty and the Book Jefferson, TX
Kendra Cullin, Borders, Inc. Ann Arbor, MI
Literacy, Inc. New York, NY
Main Street Automotive Magnet School, Comic Book Program Dayton, OH
Mary Yockey, Anderson’s Bookshop Naperville, IL
Morningside Elementary, Reading Restaurant Library Program Brownsville, TX
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children Baltimore, MD
Paul Ingram, Prairie Lights Iowa City, IA
Peggy Faul, Badges with Books Ferguson, MO
The Poisoned Pen Phoenix, AZ
Principal Scott Owens, W. G. Rhea Elementary School Paris, TN
Roosevelt Brown, Reading Literacy Learning, Inc. San Diego, CA
R. J. Julia Bookshop Madison, CT
San Miguel Academy of Newburgh Newburgh, NY
Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Columbia, SC
Susan Scatena, Queens Library Queens, NY
Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival New Orleans, LA
University of Southern California Literacy Programs Los Angeles, CA
For more information on the 2006 winners, please visit: www.pattersonpageturner.org
Permalink | |
Leopardlicious Toga Party, a la Animal House
I remember going to the cinema to see the original “Animal House” movie starring Jim Belushi and Tim Matheson. I know it was sometime in the late 70’s but the whole parody of the fraternity life, the music, I could not get that song out of my head, “It makes me what to shout!”. I too wanted to have a toga party! So when I opened my first hair salon, Town & Country Headquarters, that first Halloween I had a toga party! I have a photo somewhere of me dressed in a toga sitting in a grocery cart I borrowed from the neighboring Safeway store with a laurel of leaves around my head! We had a blastie blast that Halloween! I am ready to “shout” again as I recently read author, Will Clarke’s new book, “The Worthy”! An edge of your seat read that is what I call “Animal House 2007”. The story revolves around a fraternity house brother who gets killed during a hazing and comes back to set things right. Currently, the book is now being made to a movie and being filmed on the L.S.U. campus in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Though Will Clarke now lives in Dallas, he’s a Shreveport boy who has written one leopardlicious of a read. Now Will was suppose to come to my annual Pulpwood Queen Girlfriend Weekend and caught that dang flu bug with 103 fever, the whole nine yards. Fully recovered, he has consented to my rain check and is now coming to my next Pulpwood Queens of East Texas Book Club meeting in Jefferson. In fact, we are throwing a TOGA PARTY in his honor and apropos as it is the month of Spring Break frivolity! The event is as follows:
March 13th, 2007 Tuesday 6:30 p.m. at Beauty and the Book 210 West Austin Jefferson, Texas 75657 (located directly across from the historic Excelsior Hotel in downtown Jefferson)
It’s a Toga Party so are you “worthy” to wear, in keeping with the Pulpwood Queen theme of animal print, leopard or zebra sheets! We’ll have a best Toga Contest with Will as the judge. All I can say is go for it! Will Clarke will be giving a book talk, time for questions and answers, followed by a book signing in our Leopardlicious “Animal House”, Beauty and the Book! For those wishing to get a book signed, please call me today to reserve your copy at: 903-665-7520 or email me at kathy@beautyandthebook.com We except debit and all major credit cards. For more on Will Clarke and his books go to: www.willclarke.com and www.booktourvirgin.blogs.com Also coming up Saturday, March 24th, 2007 will be the Texas Music Awards at Music City Texas, now sanctioned the Texas Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I will be helping as a volunteer and also having a Pulpwood Queen booth at this event so come watch these Texas Musical Stars walk the red carpet and hear some of the best music, not only in Texas, but in the country! Check it out at www.musiccitytexas.org and www.mytexasmusic.com
Coming up next in April: “An Evening with Rue McClanahan” to celebrate her new book, “My First Five Husbands….and the Ones Who Got Away”. Tickets are $30.00 and include her book and refreshments. Mark your calendar for April 24, 2007 at 7:00 p.m. and as we are expected record crowds purchase your tickets early as they will be numbered, 903-665-7520 or email me at kathy@beautyandthebook.com.
Last but not least, author J. Brooks Dann has done it again with his final blog on attending our Girlfriend Weekend 2007 and getting crowned TIMBER GUY OF THE YEAR! Check it out at www.jbrooksdann.com and you’ll love the photos too that go along with his “take” on our literary weekend. Jeremy had me in stitches and he just confirmed he will be back to reign at our first ever International Book Club Author Extravaganza to be held in Shreveport, Louisiana at the Municipal Auditorium July 13 - 15, 2007. This event is a fundraiser for The Friends of the Municipal Auditorium and it will be three days of author events, panels, and workshops with two nights of entertainment. More on this soon but in the meantime check out our venue at www.stageofthestars.com
Tiara wearing and Book sharing, Kathy L. Patrick
Founder of The Pulpwood Queens as seen on Good Morning America and The Oprah Winfrey Show!
Permalink | |
INTRODUCING “TIMBER GUY OF THE YEAR”, J. BROOKS DANN!
Girlfriend Weekend 2007 has come and gone and I decided that I would finally, (after recovering from too much fun), write about the experience. Then author, J. Brooks Dann started sending me his blog reports on the weekend. I, as always, if labeled prefer “reader” and read is exactly what I did when those Girlfriend Weekend report blogs started rolling in. I laughed until I cried. I also love a man’s take on Girlfriend Weekend. I have copied and pasted in his first report. After reading his highly humorous first report may I suggest you now go to his blog site direct to read all the following reports at: http://www.jbrooksdann.com/. There are many more and each one is a hoot! They had me laughing so loud that my teenagers came clamoring down the stairs to see exactly why their mother was in stitches. Maybe all you guys who are secure in your masculinity and are literacy supporters will now join us in our book loving fun. We are an equal opportunity book club. We just cannot seem to get many guys to join our book club. Don’t let the name Pulpwood Queens fool you. We could just as easily be The Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Clubs. We just have to get more than like ten male members in our hundreds of chapters nationwide and worldwide now too!
So read Jeremy’s take below and if you like what you read, check out J. Brooks Dann’s first novel “Anecdotal”. You heard it from me first. Here is a writer and talent to watch. I also might mention I am not alone in my admiration of Jeremy’s work. He was voted by the most applause at our Girlfriend Weekend HAIR BALL, TIMBER GUY OF THE YEAR! He had some pretty stiff competition but his singing me “Lady” sent the audience into a thunderous round of applause!
Bowing to the feet of our NEW KING, introducing J. BROOKS DANN!
Tiara wearing, Timber Guy of the Year and book sharing, Kathy L. Patrick Founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Club P.S. Go to my website HOME page to view photos of our Girlfriend Weekend and of J. Brooks Dann, TIMBER GUY OF THE YEAR!
Girlfriend Weekend: My Pulpwood Queen Odyssey Begins
I first met Kathy Patrick, doyenne of the teeming book club known as the Pulpwood Queens, at the Book Group Expo in San Jose last summer. Kathy was hard to miss: she was the only person wearing a tiara. It was a little strange, because, as everyone in the Bay Area knows, you never wear a tiara before Labor Day.
Kathy’s Pulpwood Queen chapters span Texas, the southeast and several other states, a virtual literary empire sending tribute to the seat of power in Jefferson, Texas. Actually, there are several seats of power, since Kathy’s headquarters is a book store/beauty parlor featuring a multitude of seats for the requisite shampooing, cutting, drying, dyeing and other assorted and sundry activities. But don’t let the bottles of Paul Mitchell shampoos and platinum dyes fool ya: the Pulpwood Queens are a serious literary force, features in tons of publications and even on ABC’s Good Morning America.
I was flattered when Kathy invited me to be one of the featured authors at the “Girlfriend Weekend,” the yearly book and bouffant bash that attracts hundreds of Pulpwood Queens. Pretty much all I knew about the Girlfriend Weekend was from this photo.
But then again, that’s pretty much all I needed to know. I loaded up a couple boxes of books, a pack of Sharpie and hit the road to Marshall, the East Texas town hosting the mega-event.
What happened over the next three days shook me to my core.
More to follow.
Check out the rest of the Jeremy’s blogs on the weekend by going to: http://www.jbrooksdann.com/
FORGET THE FLU, SUFFERING FROM TOO MUCH FUN!
I work all year on my annual Pulpwood Queen Girlfriend Weekend booking authors, planning, and coordinating all the events, authors and attendees from travel to paneled sessions. I never work harder in the final days before the event, which is celebration of women, girlfriends, authors, books, literacy and BIG TIME FUN! Then when the event hits, it’s no sleep and TOO MUCH FUN! Consequentially, it takes me weeks for my 50 year old body, mind, and spirit to recover. I seriously think my eyes did not uncross and focus for at least two weeks after the event but is it worth it! Absolutely! I never have had so much fun in my entire life.
Our OFFICIAL sponsor The Marshall News Messenger wrote a kazillion features on this event that are on their website, www.marshallnewsmessenger.com or mine, www.beautyandthebook.com. Besides all their front page features we even made the front page of The Dallas Morning News. Check it out at www.dallasmorningnews.com and type Girlfriend Weekend in Search box. There is a video too on their website.
Now I kept meaning to blog the event then the authors started writing features about the event. Like this one below from author, Ron Hogan:
mediabistro.com/…/scenepulpwoodgirlfriendsweekend51515.asp -
Or this wonderful feature from Carolyn Turgeon, (author of Pulpwood Queen Book Club Selection “Rain Village”), for the website Shelf Awareness:
Carolyn Turgeon’s Pulpwood Queens’ Girlfriend Weekend
Shelf Awareness The weekend before last I traveled to Marshall, Tex., the small-town setting for this year’s Pulpwood Queens’ Girlfriend Weekend, an annual event held in East Texas since 2001. Members of the Pulpwood Queens—the largest meeting and discussion book club in the country, according to founder Kathy Patrick—come to meet with authors, buy books and jewelry, and don their most fabulous leopard print duds and rhinestone pins for the weekend’s highlight, the Hair Ball.
I went to the event as a Pulpwood Queens author whose debut novel will be read by the club this April (Kathy selects the books that the “thousands” of members in the club’s more than 100 chapters read each month), but I felt far more like a fan than an attraction. I was a fan of the nearly 60 authors present—I bought a bunch of books and ran around getting them signed when I probably should have been hawking my own—and a fan of the few hundred Pulpwood Queens who were there, women who gather once a month in each other’s houses or at local restaurants and embrace Patrick’s idea that reading is as fun as it is important. At the Friday afternoon press conference, Kathy was unmistakable when she swept in: vivacious, larger than life, a fun-loving, tiara-wearing blonde Texas woman decked out in fake fur and rhinestones. She is also deeply passionate about books. Underlying all the fun and big hair is a serious commitment to spreading literacy, especially to readers who might otherwise never meet an author or gather around a table to talk about a book. Her enthusiasm is infectious: at one point she pulled me and Margaret Sartor aside and as she described Margaret’s book American Pie, I honestly felt like I had to have at that book that very instant. I remember watching Oprah describe White Oleander—“liquid poetry!!”—and feeling the same way. The weekend events started on Friday night, when everyone met up at the Marshall for a night of music and improvised skits, emceed by Phil Doran and featuring a hilarious sketch in which author River Jordan impersonated Kathy Patrick in a blonde wig, as host of the Okra Show. Saturday was an all-day author extravaganza, with a series of panels upstairs and downstairs. In between, long lines formed in the book room, where Barnes & Noble sold stacks of each author’s books. I was on the “Authors Who Have Mastered the Art of Storytelling” panel, and, having never sat on a panel before, I was more than a little nervous. I quickly realized that this was as fun and low-pressure as it gets: we just talked about our books one by one, and how we came up with our ideas, and the audience was attentive and sweet (and sparkling). Afterwards, several women touched my arm or patted my shoulder as I walked by, to tell me how much they’d enjoyed it. The whole weekend was like that; the authors were all friendly and having a great time, as were the Pulpwood Queens themselves. And I met a ton of great authors: laid-back Montana writer Cindy Dyson, charming Louisianan Ronlyn Domingue, elegant, stately New Englander Mary McGarry Morris and Californian newcomer Amy Wallen, to name just a few. The crazy (and hair) reached new heights at Saturday night’s Hair Ball, where group after group of ladies arrived decked out in their finest and flashiest attire and posed under the PULPWOOD Hollywood-style sign on one wall. One sleek grey-haired woman wore a glittering silver gown, the picture of elegance. One group was dressed as Marilyn Monroe. Another woman went as Cher. Author Kathi Kamen Goldmark showed up in a wig with two white cones jutting from the top. A highlight was the Timber Man contest, where male authors like William Cobb, Ron Hogan and Robert Dalby got out and danced for the coveted prize. The three finalists, chosen by applause, had to sing to Kathy, and when J. Brooks Dann belted out “Lady,” we all knew he had it in the bag. It was anything goes. I found myself dancing for hours and whooping it up Texas style. Lord knows what was caught on camera. When the party wound down at about midnight, a group of authors and I drove 15 miles to Jefferson to the one bar that was open until 2 a.m. We stayed till closing time, and a small group of us even danced to a live version of “Cocaine.” Sunday morning was a final brunch. Afterwards, I got the opportunity to drive out to Jefferson to Kathy’s store, Beauty and the Book, the only hair salon/bookstore in the country (Kathy also does hair), which is in a quaint house with a fence and a front yard. There’s a tree dripping with Mardi Gras beads and a bra or two in front, and a long Southern porch with three vintage hairdryers lined up in a row. When you walk inside, into a leopard-covered hallway, plastic vines hang down from the door frame leading into the main shop. The store itself is filled with books (many of them book club selections) and stuffed leopards and Marilyn Monroe prints and a castle-shaped birdcage and a fireplace with a mantle covered in sparkly things. Behind the front table is an elaborate throne. Just past this main room is a beauty parlor that’s just as wild and full of wonders, each wall hanging or trinket attached to a story of its own. I was sad to leave this crazy place and come back to New York. I even have fantasies of moving to Texas myself. I love Kathy’s vision: that women should be glamorous and fabulous and extraordinary, and that books are as much a part of that as elaborate hairdos and rhinestones and best friends.
—Carolyn Turgeon Up next more blogs including a wonderful series of blogs from author, J. Brooks Dann of “Anecdotal”. His book is HOT and so is the author! Well at least that is what the single Pulpwood Queens tell me, being a happily married woman. Besides he did get voted TIMBER GUY OF THE YEAR! Please comment and mark your calendars for Girlfriend Weekend 2008, that is January 18 - 20, 2008 to be specific! Tiara wearing and Book sharing,
Kathy L. Patrick Sometimes some of the best things in your life happen when least expected. Phil Latham, publisher of The Marshall News Messenger emailed me to call him. He wanted to have a meeting with him and Stephanie Atkins of The Longview News Journal (both newspapers are part of the 27 Cox Newspapers across the country and in my neck of the woods). They wanted to talk to me about helping me with my annual Pulpwood Queen Girlfriend Weekend. We had that meeting. I felt as if I had won the literary lottery. The Marshall News Messenger was going to be my official sponsor for my Girlfriend Weekend. We just finished that event and it has taken me a couple weekends for my eyes to uncross and focus. I was suffering from too much literary fun. Yes, reading is fun and we try to make this event as entertaining as it can be with all of our authors, skits, musical artists, and infamous HAIR BALL. We dance like maniacs for literacy with this year’s them being “The Pulpwood Queens Go HOLLYWOOD”! The event is our annual gathering of Pulpwood Queens Book Club members and chapters from around the country, girlfriends, booklovers and more authors than you can shake a stick at, like close to 60 this year. Our theme was The Pulpwood Queens Go Hollywood and did we ever. With The Dallas Morning News and Southern Living and their fabulous reporters and photographers in attendance, I felt just like I truly was walking the red carpet all weekend. Flash bulbs flashing, interviews happening, I thought, so this is what it is like to be a star. In reflection, to say the weekend was a tremendous success would be a total understatement. I have never received so many front page newspapers stories. In fact, I am checking with the Guinness Book of World Records because I think we set a new record high for the most consecutive front page newspaper stories. We did make some news this weekend but one thing that stands out above everything to me. When you partner with someone who is also a literacy leader, you can do far more to promote literacy than crusading by yourself. It is time people for all of us in this country to come together for literacy. There are a kazillion different entities promoting literacy and reading across the country. There are also a bazillion book clubs. I started the first franchised book club and also the conversation within the community that we need to now work together. The Marshall News Messenger was my knight in shining newspaper armor to ride forth and charge full gallop ahead on our literacy mission. The word had reached their Cox Newspaper castle domain, that we were damsels in distress. We were fighting an uphill battle for literacy. This is no fairy tale but it does have a happy ending. Every attendee at the event has raved about how wonderful the event was and are now back home charged to join our book club, start chapters, and take on literacy endeavors. Every author in attendance has let me know just how much they too enjoyed the event and many have been inspired to go on and write features, blogs about the weekend. Several photographers have sent me amazing photos of the event and sent me there links to order photographs. And we not only made the front pages of The Marshall News Messenger but the front page of The Dallas Morning News plus a video link. We had arrived at the kingdom of being discovered. Now for those reading this that don’t have a clue what the Girlfriend Weekend is about? I will in the next several blogs be giving you highlights of the each days events. In the meantime, check out our website, www.beautyandthebook.com as I am posting all the photo links on Home Page, news stories on Hot Stuff and more! I always loved reading those fantabulous fairy tales of my youth. Grimm’s Brothers, Hans Christian Anderson’s were amongst my favorites. They had drama, rags to riches stories where all the fair maidens were rescued from evil forces; the wicked stepmother, the dragon, or witch, or evil spell. Our evil force is illiteracy. Besides living in the 5th poorest county in the state I just found out Marion County has a 39% illiteracy rate. I was in shock. Here I run the largest “meeting and discussing” book club in the world and my home stomping grounds 39% of the population cannot read! This year it is my goal to partner with the Jefferson ISD and our Jefferson Carnegie Library to get a literacy program going in our county. I am signing up to train on how to help to teach someone to read. I live a full and rich life because I am a reader. I cannot imagine a life without reading. That is important to a person as our basic needs of food and shelter. No matter how poor you are, if you are taught to read you have been given the tools to educate yourself and better yourself. I have been able to go to places I never dreamed, walked in other people’s shoes and even found my own faith in God because of reading. Reading is important and to know that I now have a knight by my side to crusade for literacy is a dream come true. Some people have often felt that I had my head in the clouds, I dream to big. There have been many naysayers in my life. But to know that there are others such as Phil Latham and the good folks at The Marshall News Messenger and Cox Newspapers who share my literary vision gives me great hope for a better and more literate tomorrow. God Bless The Marshall News Messenger! So as we gallop off into our literary sunset remember we’ll be back next year with yet another Girlfriend Weekend. Mark your calendars for January 18 - 20, Girlfriend Weekend 2008! Warner Books will debut my first book “The Pulpwood Queens’ Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life”. Our theme will be NEW YORK, NEW YORK and I am already at work on bringing you an all star Broadway inspired cast of authors. Won’t you join us on our sole mission to get the world reading and also on our Girlfriend Weekend which is a celebration of girlfriends, yes, and boyfriends, authors, books and BIG TIME FUN! My next blog will cover the Friday activities of Girlfriend Weekend so stay tuned for that recap and be sure and thank The Marshall News Messenger for helping us on our literacy mission. I have acquired, literally, a Knight in Shining Armor that will be perpetually reading The Marshall News Messenger in my shop, Beauty and the Book, as a tribute to my literacy hero! We as a nation tend to always write to newspapers to complain about something. Won’t you join me in writing this newspaper to tell them that we applaud their efforts on sharing good news and by promoting literacy! Tiara wearing and Book sharing,
Kathy L. Patrick
Founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs
www.beautyandthebook.com
Permalink
|
|
The next couple of weekends, I woke up and realized, are going to be something I have been waiting for all my life. Can you imagine? Let me explain. First, I am speaking at the District Conference of Rotary International in Marshall, Texas today. I feel as if I have come full circle. When I was just 19 years old the owner of Crum’s Beauty School, Mrs. Crum, asked me to speak to the Manhattan Rotary Club in Kansas. I had practically failed high school speech, not because I had not prepared my speech, but because I was shy. Mrs. Crum recognized something in me that I did not see in myself and told me, “Kathy, you can do this. Just talk about your experience at our Redken School, and you will represent us well.” I was scared to death as I approached that podium with all those very important businessmen looking at me. But I loved beauty school; I excelled at this way of expressing my artistic side. I really do see hair as an art form and explained to the Manhattan Rotarians my experience of attending beauty school. In fact, doing hair was how I put myself through college. Even though with seven colleges and universities under my belt and still have not graduated, I have never regretted for a moment that I have been a life long learner. The Rotarians gave me a big round of applause and after the meeting, many came to shake my hand and tell me what an outstanding speech I had given. Mrs. Crum had planted a seed that I could do anything if I believed in myself and worked hard enough. The Rotarians were like a ray of sunshine for that little seed. I can hardly wait to speak to the Rotarians today! What an outstanding organization to not only say “service above self” but mean it and do it! Second, I have been commissioned by Diamond Jack’s Casino in Bossier City, Louisiana to do my absolutely favorite party band’s hair The B-52’s prior to their concert tonight. Now my co-worker will be doing Cindy’s hair and I, Kate Pierson. I don’t remember when I discovered The B-52’s music but their sound is instantly recognizable and just makes me what to jump up on my feet and do the watoosee to my favorite song of theirs the”Love Shack”. All that BIG HAIR and crazy dance beat just screams this band is having the time of their lives and me too, ME TOO! I had the excellent opportunity to meet Kate Pierson in person many years ago in Los Angeles. I had been invited to a Hyperion/Disney Children’s Dinner where the author and illustrator of book that published called “Wig” would be honored and featured. The B-52’s lyrics for the song “Wig” were the story for the book and Kate was there to represent them. When I got to the party invite restaurant, the Hyperion publicist told me that Kate Pierson was to be the featured guest! That is all I heard and began screaming and jumping up and down like one of those insane Beatles fans from my youth. “Oh my GAWD, you mean Kate Pierson from The B-52’s! I jumped around and around like a banshee. Now I was I think about 40 at the time, the publicist seeing my insane enthusiasm asked me, “Would you like to sit next to Ms. Pierson?” Would I ever? I about fainted as here was my fire engine red headed persona of real womanhood come to life! As Kate walked into the room, I will never forget what she wore. A small petite and very pretty blue-eyed big backcombed and haired redhead stepped into my view and she was a vision. She had on a polyester pantsuit that’s pattern was flames of fire! Red, orange, yellow hues fanned up her body and I can literally say she was HOT! Paris Hilton was a flick of ash compared to this Barbie Gone Wild! Even with all that mile high Big Hair she barely came up to the top of my shoulder. I was mesmerized and my knees went weak as we were introduced. I was going to have dinner with Kate Pierson, my idol. I remember that dinner as one of the best nights of my middle-aged life. We really hit it off, as Kate is a reader. At the time, she lived in Woodstock, New York and she told me all about her favorite little independent bookstore, The Golden Notebook. Like me, she was a flea market Queen and loved to shop at those. I told her about the largest flea market in America in Canton, Texas. I think she about swooned when I told her about the acre after acre of flea market booths. That night was a dream. Our dinner lasted four hours and she begged us to forgive her but she had to go as she was singing back up for R.E.M. at a concert in San Diego. I knew as we said our goodbyes that someday I would see her again. Nevertheless, I never dreamed I would be doing her hair, I can hardly wait and will give a full recap report on that later. In the mean time shouting, “TIN ROOF RUSTED!” To get that line, you just have to buy their CDS! As I looked back at that mousy haired photo of me with Kate taken years ago, I remember that as soon as I got back to Texas, I scheduled a hair appointment to go back to my blonde hair coloring of my Madonna and Blondie days. Why not? Kate was hot and you know she was I think at the time about ten years older than me. I learned a lot that evening and one of them is age is a state of mind and by God, if you love something then, go for it! Kate had ignited a spark that has been burning ever since that day. If you have a dream, live it and I am! Last, every year I have a book loving party! It is the ultimate party of the year for me! One in which I host with my book club members, The Pulpwood Queens, and invite in some of the authors of the best books I have read that past year! We call it our Girlfriend Weekend, a celebration of women, authors, books, our girlfriends and BIG TIME FUN! This year the Cox Newspaper, The Marshall News Messenger, (who gives me this blog site), is joining the Pulpwood Queens to host this literary and literacy promoting venture. They have gone so far beyond the call that I am humbled by their newspapers generosity and their faith of believing in me that reading is important. For the past year, they have run ads, full color ones no less, printed the schedule of author and book events, and for the past month they have featured an author a day on the front page and will continue to do so until the event. In all my life, I have never had a more ardent supporter of my literacy mission, to get America reading. I want you all to know dear readers that in this business world today never have I found a better partnership than The Marshall News Messenger. They see my view, the BIG PICTURE. Reading and Literacy are important! Now for you to understand how important that statement is and how outstanding our Girlfriend Weekend is, you have to experience it! Come, and like me speaking to Rotary, dancing to the music of The B-52’s, throw yourself into this event with wild abandon. This weekend is the culmination of my life and my life’s work, reading. The whole program is on my website www.beautyandthebook.com. Come one, come all! This weekend has something for everybody. We will have two nights of incredible entertainment featuring authors at our take off of the television show, Saturday Night Live, that we call Friday Night Live. All the skits are by the authors and the authors will all provide the musical entertainment. Saturday will be author panels all day of some of the best reading in America today. Saturday night is our infamous Hair Ball with the theme “The Pulpwood Queens Go Hollywood!” Sunday morning will be our Author Brunch featuring Hollywood’s favorite funny man, comedy writer turned author, Phil Doran who wrote for the television shows “All in the Family”, “Sanford and Son”, the “Wonder Years” and featuring Nashville musical artist, Jonathan Pierce who is married to featured author, Denise Hildreth of the “Savannah from Savannah” series. This weekend will have New York Times bestseller authors such as Cassandra King, a Pulitzer Prize Winner and author Doug Marlette, a Pen/Faulkner, National Book Award winner, and Oprah Book Club Selection Author, Mary McGarrity Morris. We have authors who write fiction, non-fiction, teen books, inspirational books, historical novels, romance, memoir, suspense, humor, truly, there is something for any reader. Books that will make you realize that reading is the best form of entertainment that I know.
As some of you may know, I turned 50 this year. I was beginning to have thoughts of what have I done my whole life. Do I have a purpose? Why am I still here? All I have to tell you all is that 50th birthday was a wake-up call. Next year at Girlfriend Weekend 2008 my first book will premiere “The Pulpwood Queens’ Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life” to be published by Warner Books. I am planning on a big book launch Girlfriend Weekend Party. Wonder if I could get The B-52’s for my HAIR BALL. Well, all I know it never hurts to ask and I’m asking. I know that the first half my life I spent taking from this this world. You should see how many books I own. I now know that I do have a purpose, which is to get America reading. I plan to make the last half of my life in giving back more than I have received. It is better to give than receive. If everyone would adopt that Rotarian motto “service above self” think what a better world it would be. I can think of no other greater gift than I have been given than of being taught to read. Thank you for reading my stories. In addition, there is nothing more that I love to do than read your responses to my blogs. Please comment and do let us get a conversation going with reading as our home base. Someone once said that home is where I keep my books. I have built a house of books and now know that I must build a home of readers. Won’t you join my book loving party and be my reading family? Singing “It’s the Love Shack, a little ole place where we can get together, Love Shack, baby yeah!” Tiara wearing and Book sharing, Kathy L. Patrick Founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs and the book festivals,
Books Alive, Girlfriend Weekend, and our first ever International Book Club Author Extravaganza
Beauty and the Book
210 West Austin
Jefferson, Texas 75657
www.beautyandthebook.com, official website
www.pulpwoodqueens@yahoo.com, official chat site
www.marshallnewsmessenger, official Pulpwood Queen Blog site
www.southernliving/ilovetexas, official “What the Pulpwood Queens are Reading!” website My Hair Salon/Book Store is smack dab in the middle of our main street, Austin, located in an historic home that was built at the turn on the century. Surrounded by what was once a white painted fence, now to my dismay, looks more shabby chic. I am thinking of having a Tom Sawyer fence-painting day but more on that later date. My shop’s front porch has these amazing bushes. While they may look ordinary, they are in actuality, absolutely magical! Like a child, my sense of wonder made me clap my hands, as I stood on the front porch admiring the work of Gretchen, (who works for my fellow bookseller, Fred McKenzie of Books on the Bayou that has his shop on one side of the house) and Nelson, (my fellow co-worker and salon professional extraordinaire) decorating skills for the holiday season. Greenery was festooned around the porch with twinkly lights. Big red bows accented the holiday decorations. A blow up Snowman family stood bravely in the yard weathering the wind and dropping temperatures. There is nothing quite as beautiful to me as the Christmas season and all the trimmings! As I basked in the glow of their pink cheeks and smiling faces, my random mind quickly retorted, “Did anyone see Boston Legal last night on television?” Gretchen and Nelson looked at me when all of a sudden I heard, from what I thought was the bushes, “Oh my gosh, could you believe that show?” We all began looking to see where the voice was coming from when Mary Hileman’s head popped up from behind the bushes next door. Mary was decorating for the Jesse Allen Wise Garden Club, the Jay Gould Railroad Car, which is parked and rests next to my shop and of which the garden club gives daily tours. “Good grief, Mary, I thought it was the bushes talking,” I laughed as I then saw Sharon Thibedeau also appear in our view with a red bow in hand. The first two weeks in December, the Jefferson Historical Foundation hosts private home tours all decorated in old-fashioned greenery and candlelight, thus Jefferson’s Candlelight Tour of Homes. For a good ten minutes, we remarked on the weird turn of events on the show “Boston Legal” with its Denny (actor, William Shatner of Star Trek fame) thinking he was dating his own dwarf daughter and then the strange little man who kidnapped actor, Candace Bergen on the show. You have to see that show to believe it, kind of like Jefferson. Our whole town gets into the holiday spirit with Christmas lights, greenery decorating the houses and businesses on our brick-lined streets. There are romantic carriage rides, a Christmas Train ride along the bayou, and boat rides on the bayou. Seriously, I came to Jefferson for Christmas nearly twenty years ago and thought I had landed on the back lot of “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Move over Jimmy Stewart, here I come! Within two weeks, I packed my books yet again to move from sunny San Diego to “Mayberry on the Bayou.” I realize now I am more like Floyd the barber on the Andy Griffith Show than Jimmy Stewart. I leave all that banking stuff to my best friend Pam McGregor who is Vice President of my bank around the corner and down the street. Through the week, I kept thinking of Mary popping up out of the bushes next door to my shop. Now you are going to laugh, but it reminded me of the “burning bush” in the Bible. Scary how my mind works. Well, maybe not the real Bible version but at least the Charles Heston as Moses version in the movie. Funny, but in my own distorted way biblical scenarios flash through my mind especially and on a regular basis, “What would Jesus do?” Okay, I have lost my reader on my mind process so I will just move on. Hard to explain so, nevermind. I thought about Mary because her popping up reminded me of just how great it is to live in a small town. Jefferson is a place that makes me believe. Believe in the kindnesses of strangers who grace my doors and also in it’s residents. A place where everybody knows your name, kind of like that bar on “Cheers” the television show. Sorry, you just have to kind of follow me here. Blindly, I might add. It is okay because I do know where I am going. Now when I first moved here, having everyone know my business, irritated the hell out of me. Every time I stepped out of my then historic home on Soda Street, my neighbor Tommy would step out for a smoke. Sometimes I would just step out on the porch just to see if he would appear. He did every time. My version of kind of a grownup peek-a-boo. Yep, there was Tommy. After awhile, it became reassuring to know that someone cared enough to see what I was up to. Kind of like a child that finds mommy is hiding behind her hands, “Peekaboo!” Mommy is there, woo. Then one day I stepped outside to check the mail and Tommy did not appear. I stood around forever, checking my flower box, sweeping the porch, and thinking where’s Tommy? Then he would appear and I’d smile and go back inside. I began to look forward to talking to Tommy. In fact, many a time, I would walk across the street and we’d chat. I found out he use to live in San Diego when he was in the armed forces. Tommy always cracked me up because I knew that every time the hearse would pull into the alley just down the block, Tommy would call the funeral home and go, “Who died?” Tommy always knew all the news on Jefferson, especially who died. He was a living newspaper. You wanted the towns news, all you had to do was just go visit Tommy. I got a call one day from my sister asking me, “Kathy, is there something you want to tell me?” “No, Karen, nothing new here.” “Were you at the emergency room last night?.” “What! Good grief Karen, no way, where in the world did you get that idea?” “Well, Edith Ann (name changed to keep me from getting sued) called me and she said she saw Gayles’ van in your drive so she figured that she was covering your bed & breakfast for you as you must have been hospitalized. Tell me the truth, did you have a miscarriage?” Now the van in my drive was not my friend Gayle’s but a guest at the time as then I ran a bed & breakfast. I have laughed my head off ever since about this story as I am serious. I am not making this up. Edith Ann was convinced I had been in the hospital, therefore it must be because of a miscarriage. You have got to love the town gossip, as she certainly kept us all highly entertained. Small town life is ready material for anyone who ever dreams of being a writer. I never have a lack of material for writing this blog for all I have to do is look out the window. Something is happening. Whether it’s somebody’s head popping up from the bushes or where the front page photo feature in the local paper is a mother possum with her babies found in the bushes of The Excelsior Hotel across the street from my shop. Or where my fellow bookseller Fred, thinking someone has finally stole his bicycle only to be found parked in front of The Hamburger Store by the bushes where he left it parked from riding it over to lunch. He had walked back to our shops and just forgot. I live in a town that holds an annual Bigfoot Convention and people come from all over the country to attend this thing. My friend and photographer, Mike Weber, rents canoes and even has a Bigfoot Special. If you spy Bigfoot as you paddle down our Little Cypress Bayou and document by film or camera this sighting, the canoe rental is FREE! You’ve got to love a town that has a community wide church choir and Thanksgiving service held this year in the junior high auditorium. Now that’s the Catholic Church, Episcopal, Baptist, Adventist, Methodist, and our outlying country churches. We all do things different at our churches. I know as I sang in that choir and was reminded of that church choir from the old movie starring Don Knotts though I admit. I was not as nervous as he was but I was certainly on my toes. Everything happened fast and though I was use to maybe not slow, I felt like a 33 record suddenly changed to a 45 speed on the record player. Yes, I became a singing Chipmunk. The choir was glorious! I found out I can do Chipmunk, who knew! I live in a town that has more parades, festivals, celebrations than you can shake a stick at. We may be small but we do make our own fun. We don’t sit around and watch the grass grow here. The sidewalks may roll up at five on weekdays but on weekends, they are more likely to “rock and roll”! Not wanting to miss out on the eccentric turn our town has taking with it’s Bigfoot Convention, weekend Ghost Walks, and Paranormal Convention. On St. Patrick’s Day, mysterious lawn gnomes began appearing in the front yard of my shop coming out of the bushes. You know those little yard ornaments with green vests and pointed red hats! Cameras flashed left and right capturing the lawn gnomes. They again mysteriously disappeared after St. Patricks Day. I have heard they live in a hollowed out dwelling beneath my box elder bushes. You can never say booksellers don’t have a good sense of humor and with me being a Patrick and Fred being a McKenzie, we do have a bit of the Irish in us coming out! Though Scot/Irish, I do tend to push my luck now and then. I also did an “Erin Go Braless” tree in my front yard. Yes, I got my Pulpwood Queen “Splinters” to throw leopard bras up into the Sugar Maple out front with green Mardi Gras Beads as an awareness for Breast Cancer. I annually participate with The Pulpwood Queens in our “Relay for Life” with the American Cancer Society. For the third year running, we hold the title for Most Spirited Team and this year finally won the coveted “Most Money Raised” with $6,000 going to that incredibly worthwhile organization. I thought the tree clever, out of the box, insightful. Really, a fun way to make people aware that one out of every four women get breast cancer. Unfortunately, there were those in the community that thought, “NOT!”. At eleven p.m. that night I was fishing the bras out of the tree with a rake handle. Better stick with mysterious lawn gnomes, underwear in trees in Jefferson, Texas. That is a major no-no. Our town has quite a lot of characters but here in the south we embrace our eccentricities. As author, River Jordan, who is coming this weekend from Nashville to our annual Pulpwood Queen Christmas Party, once said, “Up north, they hide away the crazy family members in the attic but here in the south we proudly prop them up on our front porches for all to see.” I have the feeling I am one of those propped up crazy people. If you come to Jefferson, I will be waving madly from my porch. If you stop, I will probably talk your fool head off too. I guess it’s because in my hometown in Kansas leading society never seemed to catch my interest. But the young woman who would come into Mariani’s Rexall Drug Store wearing only her slip to sit down at the spinning bar stool and order a glass of blood, now that was something. The drugstore clerk would calmly say, “Just a moment,” and then call her family to come and get her. I would watch the whole scenario sitting on the ledge in the front window peering out from behind a comic book that was for sale from the display there at that corner in the store. Or I loved to walk from my grandparents store, Maloney’s Shoe and Saddle Shop, to the corner and sit at the bench that was the bus stop in front of the Greenwood Hotel. All the old men of the town congregated there as they had a tobacco shop inside and a liquor store in the front on Main Street. One old man would invariably come by and pick up all the cigarette butts on the ground to smoke later. There were tons of cigarette butts. It was fascinating. I never know what may happen in Jefferson. Denzel Washington might be on Austin Street scouting for location for his new movie. Shoot even my mail is different in Jefferson than anywhere else I have lived. My first Christmas card this year was from the cowboy singing group, “Riders in the Sky”. My second was from the guys who pick up my trash. Jimmy Dean, the sausage king has played cards down at Auntie Skinners Riverboat Club and I noticed a signed photo of Jessica Simpson made out to the owner of The Bakery, Jeff Fratangelo across the street from my shop. And who knows, you may never know who might pop up out of the bushes! Looking for entertainment? You never know it might be in your own backyard! One thing I guarantee, you’ll never look at bushes in the same way again. Tiara wearing and Book sharing,
Kathy L. Patrick
www.beautyandthebook.com , the official website of the Pulpwood Queens
www.marshallnewsmessenger.com , the official Pulpwood Queen Blog site
www.southernliving.com , the official “What the Pulpwood Queens are Reading” website
www.pulpwoodqueens@yahoogroups.com, the official chat site of The Pulpwood Queens P.S. Author, River Jordan of “The Messenger of Magnolia Street will be our special guest speaker at the following Pulpwood Queen Christmas Parties. We invite all to attend our holiday celebration, so come join us on our mission to promote literacy. December 3, 2006, Sunday night, 6:30 p.m. The Pulpwood Queen Christmas Party at Bull Durham’s on Austin Street in Jefferson, Texas. Tickets are $20.00; include dinner, and book talk by River Jordan. Call for tickets at 903-665-7520 or email me at Kathy@beautyandthebook.com Bring a favorite gift-wrapped book if you want to join our annual holiday book exchange. December 4, 2006, Monday night, 6:30 p.m. at All Saints Episcopal located at 9051 Youree Drive in Shreveport, Louisiana hosted by The Pulpwood Queens of North Louisiana and again featuring author, River Jordan as their special speaker. Free of charge, just email Head Queen Lynn Laird at entrenous@peoplepc.com or call 318-458-1666 to r.s.v.p. Check out her website at www.riverjordanink.com
Permalink
|
|
I watched the CMT Country Music Awards the other night and was thrilled when Craig Wiseman won “Song of the Year” for his song, “Believe” recorded by Brookes and Dunn. My book club, The Pulpwood Queen’s had hosted the book launch for Michael Morris’s “Live Like You Were Dying” that was based on the song written by Craig Wiseman and Tim Nichols. All three of the boys had come for the book launch and I was impressed by the books story and the words and message of the song. These were words to live by and now with “Believe”, I thought to myself how true since I had just finished our first ever BOOKS ALIVE event. I had never believed more in my life. A little over a year ago today, I ran over to the Hamburger Store here in Jefferson to grab a sandwich and a slice of their to-die-for pie and was shocked when I entered the cafe. The place was packed on a weekday and I did not know a soul. Now I live in a town population 2,100, everybody knows everybody. I wasn’t sure if I was in a Rod Sterling “Twilight Zone” television flashback or what the deal was. Suddenly I saw my minister, Polly Standing. waiting on tables. What in the world? I scampered over to Polly and asked her, “What ‘s going on Polly? Who are these people?” Polly, as she bused tables told me as she threw her arms out to span the room, “These are all displaced families from Hurricane Katrina, Kathy.” Flabbergasted by all these families I was viewing dining on what looked like bowls of gumbo. I was suddenly aware that here were people in need, desperate need. I asked her, “What can I do to help?” Flash forward to this past weekend, I planned and helped put into play the first ever Christian and Inspirational Book Festival as a fundraiser for my church that we named BOOKS ALIVE! My church, The First United Methodist Church of Jefferson, Texas helped coordinate the relief efforts for all the displaced families of Hurricane Katrina and Rita. The church and its members had provided shelter. We converted all the Sunday School rooms into emergency family shelters for the displaced families. The church provided food, and really all kinds of assistance through outreach and mission. The Hamburger Store provided over 2,000 free meals for these families. I was inspired to help on this mission and came up the idea of doing a book festival as a fundraiser for the church’s mission and outreach programs. By God, if the church could help this many people in crisis then I could put together an event that would raise money for this church. BOOKS ALIVE was born! I sent an email out to all my author friends who were either Christian writers or who I thought would be perfect for inspiration for this festival. I told them that all money collected would go to the church. I also told them that I could not pay them anything to come as it was a fundraiser for this church. The response? Everyone I emailed came back and told me they would come. They would love to help a church who helps others. To this day I cannot ever thank them enough for their generosity. I was humbled by their reponse and continue to be humbled by their outpour of love and presence during this past weekends events. Our good works had begun. Now 15 authors came to Jefferson this past weekend to give their testimonials, their stories about their lives and their books and yes, their music and perform for us. We raised something like $2,500 and the money and checks still keep coming in. To say that this event was successful and life-changing would be an understatement. I knew that these authors I selected would inspire others regardless of the attendees choice of faith. This event was to be for everybody, for the adults, the youth, and the children. What I did not expect was how much it has changed the way I look at everything I will do from now on. This event was not brought to fruition easy. In fact, at one point we had to decide if the event would even be able to take place. Our ministers 21 year old twin daughters had gone to Houston to sing at a wedding. While there, Jennifer’s face fell as in Bell’s Palsy and then her whole side became paralyzed. Hospitalized, they thought maybe stroke and then after tests it was determined she had MS. The other twin, Kimberly then would have to be tested and their mother, my Pastor Polly as well. Kimberly tested fine, no MS but they found lesions on Polly’s brain which could mean MS or even worse cancer. They would have to do a spinal tap. Polly was found to be free of both MS and cancer, evidently the brain lesions were due to scarring from the migraines that Polly suffers. With Polly gone, we all kind of floundered in getting the event together. Prayers to Polly and her family, at least we now know what we have to deal with in the days ahead. Then I got the call, should we just cancel the event? Thank God that he gave us all enough faith to continue. It did not take me a minute to realize that because of this personal tragedy to my minister’s family, that we now had all the more reason to do this BOOKS ALIVE event. Our minister’s family was going to need help too, onward and upward was what I told our BOOKS ALIVE committee at the church. We rallied and thanks to our wonderful church member, Jim Gallant we had a banner up on the highway, one in front of the church and flyers to post around town. The Pride House Bed & Breakfast, Michelle and George Ostott, Jimmy and Ann Byrd, The Gingerbread House Bed & Breakfast came forth to help us with rooms for the authors. The Hamburger Store donated homemade pies, cakes and gave us a $200 donation for the church. Many of my Pulpwood Queens gave $100 and more to the church and Elizabeth Stokes and Kay Brookshire baked casseroles and desserts for the authors. Polly’s oldest daughter, whose husband had just days before left for his second stint in Iraq and who just found recently she was pregnant with her second child, cooked the authors dinner Friday night. What an inspiration! Women of the church, like Ann, Charlotte, Joyce, Paula, and more helped feed the authors and run the event. Pastor Polly even had out-of-town friends come in to do everything from serving the authors to doing dishes. We had men of the church like Jim Gallant, Bill Smith and John Standing take care of the lights, stage, and all for the outdoor concert to cooking hot dogs out on the grill with the youth of the church. Everybody just pitched in to help the church to raise the funds to help others. The following authors came to Jefferson, my church, paid for their own flights, rented their own cars, paid for their own rooms and then several donated generously back to the cause and some even donated all their book sales to the church. May I suggest to you readers that they pay attention to authors and artists who would go to great expense to help a little church in Texas. These authors came from Minnesota, Los Angeles, Nashville, Tennessee, and some made this a part of their national book tour as National Book Award winner Kimberly Willis Holt. Please buy their books and CD’s as a thank you to the authors and artists who made this event such a success. I guarantee you will be the one rewarded. I have also included their websites so you can contact them and thank them for their tremendous generosity. Justin Lookadoo, author of
“The Dateable Rules: The Guide to Sexes”
“Datable: Are You? Are They?”
“The Dirt on Dating”,
“The Dirt on Sex”,
“The Dirt on Drugs”
“The Dirt on Breaking Up”
http://www.lookadoo.com/ Kimberly Willis Holt,author of
“Waiting for Gregory”
“Part of Me: Stories of a Louisiana Family”
“Dancing in Cadillac Light”
“When Zachary Beaver Came to Town”
“Mister and Me”
“My Louisiana Sky”
www.kimberlywillisholt.com Dr. Michael Johnson, author of
“Cowboys and Angels”
“Reflections of a Cowboy”
“Tad Pole and Dr. Frog”
“Horse Stories”
“Susie, the Whispering Horse”
“A Gift for Ida and Bell”
“Stories from the South”
“Stories for Teachers”
“The Most Special Person
www.michaeljohnsonbooks.com Carolyn Brooks, author of
-Breaking the Silent Addiction of Abuse…America’s Genocide
-Exposed by Bronze Bow Publishing, expected release, November
or December 2006
-Chicken Soup for the Mother Daughter Soul 2 – Mother’s Day,
April, 2007
-One Year Life Verse Devotional by that includes inspirational
-Devotional writings of many authors including Carolyn Brooks,
Release July 2007
Biblical Work Ethics
www.carolynbrooks.com Denise Hildreth, author of
“Savannah from Savannah”
“Savannah Comes Undone”
“Savannah by the Sea”
www.denisehildreth.com Jonathan Pierce,
Nashville Christian musical artist,
CDs include-
“Jonathan Pierce: For You”
“Jonathan Pierce: Santuary”
“Jonathan Pierce: Mission”
“Jonathan Pierce: One Love” R. Dean Johnson, author, screenwriter, producer of -
LIFE: Be There at Ten Til
“Just Pray”, Runner up of BEST LIVE ACTION at Palm Springs International Festival of Shorts 2005,
BEST SCORE Rhode Island International Film Festival 2005,
HONORABLE MENTION Independent Narrative Carolina Film Festival
www.rdeanjohnson.com Ron and Caryl McAdoo, husband and wife author team of -
“The Price Paid”
“Great Firehouse Cookbooks”
“The Apple Orchard Bed & Breakfast”
“The Thief of Dreams”
And their children’s books
www.SargeantSocks.com
www.LonghornCreekPress.com Charles Martin, author of
“When Crickets Cry”,
“The Dead DonÂąt Dance”
“Wrapped in Rain”
“Healing America”,
www.charlesmartinbooks.com Jim Ainsworth, author of River Series Books,
“Biscuits Across the Brazos: A Family Story”
“In The RiverÂąs Flow”
“Rivers Crossing”
www.jimainsworth.com Pamela Stone, author of
“A Woman’s Guide to Living Alone: 10 Ways to Survive Grief and Be Happy”
www.pamstonewriter.com Allison Bottke, author of
“A Stitch in Time”
www.godallowsuturns.com And also our wonderful Kimberly and Jennifer Standing, of the twin singing duo “Mirror Image” which should have a new CD soon and can be contacted through The First United Methodist Church at www.jeffersonfirstunitedmethodistchurch.com Justin Lookadoo opened our event Friday night and brought the church down with laughter. Saturday was a day that began with National Book Award winner, Kimberly Willis Holt, and continued with fantastic author after another until the outdoor concert that night featuring Mirror Image opening for Christian and Nashville Musical Artist, Jonathan Pierce. Sunday morning the event continued with Denise Hildreth giving the sermon and her husband, Jonathan Pierce again treating us with his wonderful music! Jonathan told the crowd, he did not know why God called him to do this event, but I do. These authors, musical artists were here to share their gifts and to remind us that it is exactly that, better to give than receive. I knew that this would be an incredible event because I hand selected this people to come. What I did not know was how moved I would be by their spoken words, their written words, their songs, their songwriting, their voice and their unselfish gifts to all who came. Yes, it’s true. My life will never be the same and neither should yours. Mark your calendar for the first week in November 2007, BOOKS ALIVE will be back and I can guarantee you’ll see for yourself a higher purpose for your life. My literacy promoting batteries have been recharged but more important I feel as if I know now that we all have a purpose, a gift, a talent. Won’t you take your gifts to a higher cause. Everyday I see folks at my church and we speak, we know each other and we come to church on Sunday to fill our lives with the spirit of Jesus Christ. We come because we have a need for spiritual growth and fellowship. Since this event, I have noticed more smiles, more hugs, our lives have been changed. We can’t keep talking about what an amazing experience that weekend was for us. We got to know the authors, artists up close and personal. We have vested interest in each others lives. I know you will too and as one couple told me that had just come for a little getaway to Jefferson, not really knowing about our event, “Next year we are bringing our entire church. Nobody should miss this event.” Or the couple that came to church as they heard Jonathan from their Bed & Breakfast singing outdoors the night before, “Can you help us find a church just like this one in Dallas? We want to find a church that does things exactly like you?” At one point I thought this event would never be able to work, no one will come. I have learned that God does work in mysterious ways and I will never again lose my faith. I believe, oh I believe. I never knew that in my life on would be on a mission to promote literacy. I know now that is my purpose here on earth. I never dreamed that one day I would be doing a Christian and Inspirational book festival. God does work in mysterious ways. I may live in a little town but we are a town of big hearted people who have even bigger hearted friends. You may never be able to come to our event but I hope this story inspires you to find your purpose, your gifts, your talent and put it to good works. I have been so excited since this event that nothing can ever bring me down. I can only imagine next year but more importantly, today, this hour, this minute, this second, let’s all begin to do good works. Pay it forward no matter what your faith. This world is made of people who all need each other. And like Denise Hildreth told us, “See that glass as not half empty but half full.” I believe next year Denise that our cup will be overflowing. Tiara wearing and Book sharing,
Kathy L. Patrick
Carolyn Turgeon’s first novel, Rain Village, was published in November by Unbridled Books. She lives in New York. Here (on the right) she poses with the Pulpwood Queen herself, Kathy Patrick.Literacy Knight in Shining Newspaper Print Armor!
it’s 4:00 a.m. and I am wide-awake!
Voice from the Bushes
I BELIEVE, OH I BELIEVE!
Services »
Latest comments
This was my third year to attend Girl Friend Weekend. I wouldn’t miss it!!! I loved every minute of it. I must tell Marshall thank you, thank you, thank you!!! We all had a wonderful time in your city. We everyone felt so welcome and it was a
... read the full comment by Rosalie Oliver | Comment on INTRODUCING “TIMBER GUY OF THE YEAR”, J. BROOKS DANN! Read INTRODUCING “TIMBER GUY OF THE YEAR”, J. BROOKS DANN!
“Some of my new favorite things this year are the friends I made during this crazy weekend called The Pulpwood Queens Girlfriends Getaway AND Kathy Patrick and the way she reminds all of us doing this crazy thing we call the writers life that its okay to
... read the full comment by River Jordan | Comment on FORGET THE FLU, SUFFERING FROM TOO MUCH FUN! Read FORGET THE FLU, SUFFERING FROM TOO MUCH FUN!
What a fabulous time I had at the Pulpwood Queens’ Girlfriend Weekend and the “Hair Ball.” When else would I get to wear a glimmery turquoise gown to match the cover of my novel, HOT WATER, and a turquoise wig! A whole new meaning to
... read the full comment by Kathryn Jordan | Comment on FORGET THE FLU, SUFFERING FROM TOO MUCH FUN! Read FORGET THE FLU, SUFFERING FROM TOO MUCH FUN!
Back home here in San Diego, when I tell folks about the leopardicous, tiara-donning, rhinestone-blazened Pulpwood Queens, they blink, drop their jaw, say “nooooo!” and then ask how they can get invited. Then I tell them about the Hair Ball
... read the full comment by Amy Wallen | Comment on FORGET THE FLU, SUFFERING FROM TOO MUCH FUN! Read FORGET THE FLU, SUFFERING FROM TOO MUCH FUN!