The Pulpwood Queen talks about Judging a Book by it's Cover and a Cover by it's Book!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  What does the first picture say to you?  That photo was of me in the 5th grade.  How about the second image which is the book cover of my book, "The Pulpwood Queens' Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life"?  That's me front and center, well a couple of years ago when I was blonde, but me.  So which is the real me?  Guess what?  I am both of them but each image sends a message to the potential reader, which book would you want to read?

I was an art/geology major in college so I see everything very visually. I do judge a book by it’s cover and in fact, I pick up a book because that cover speaks to me, in such a way, I am inspired to see what the copy says on the book jacket.  Often times, I read the first few pages but this is what really gets me to purchase the book, the story.  But the cover is what entices me to pick it up in the first place, right?   Confused? Continue.

So when it came to viewing the first version of my book cover I waited anxiously with bated breath! Since my whole life revolves around the book, my book cover had to speak of the "real" me.  You can imagine my surprise and dismay when my first book cover arrived in my email box.  I opened the file and lo and behold, oh no they didn't.  You see the first book cover they sent me was orange with tiger stripes.  I had three old hags sitting under hair dryers gossiping over some trashy magazine.  Their hair styles were out of date, 1940's do's and the only thing that could have been worse is if they had been smoking.

You see in my book I clearly had stated that the Official look of my book club, The Pulpwood Queens' was Hot Pink with Leopard Print!  The artist who did my cover had obviously NOT read my book.  I actually called my literary agent to tell them that this would not do as I was afraid I would lose it on the phone.  My publisher decided to redo the cover.  The next photo was a photo of me from the eyeballs up peering out from behind a book in front of a bookshelf.  The only problem was the Red Hat Club author had the very same cover on her book and two more romance books too!  Nix that cover.  So I politely sent to my literary agent what I dreamed my cover should be.

First, I wanted the photo to be shot on the banks of Big Cypress Bayou here in East Texas where I live, with the Spanish moss dripping down, perhaps at twilight with the fog rolling in.  I wanted to place the Art Deco dresser of my girlfriend and Pulpwood Queen Joyce Jackson Futch right before the water's edge. (The chapter of my book that sold it to my editor was the chapter on Joyce that began with me the first time doing her hair, as her hair had just grown back from chemo therapy, to the last time I did her hair at Home Sweet Home Funeral Home.)  I had purchased her dresser at her estate sale after she had died as I wanted something very personal to remember her by.  This was the dresser where she put on her makeup everyday.

On the dresser was to be stacked NOT beauty products but all my Pulpwood Queen Book Club Selections with more of the books spilling onto the ground..  I would be sitting at the dresser with my back to the viewer but my face visible in the mirror.  In  other words, beauty is in the books and I was a reflection that knowledge.

Behind me coming up out of the water all dressed in white baptismal gowns would be my Pulpwood Queens each carrying their favorite book!  The message?  Baptise me in the name of Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost for true beauty comes from "within" and within we are all unique, beautiful, and readers.

Perhaps the cover would be all in black and white with perhaps, a touch of pink in a ribbon binding the books.  I wanted the book to reflect that from the "good book" to good books, you can find your purpose in life by being a reader.

My literary agent helped me to send this suggestion off to my publisher.  I was convinced they would love this artistic and unique take on my life saved by books, running the only Hair Salon/Book Store in the country and the largest "meeting and discussing" book club in the world.  I was wrong.  They dismissed my idea and forged on to capture that Hot Pink cover you see above.

Bookstore owners and booksellers have told me they hated that cover.  In fact, some almost dismissed me as they thought my book was perhaps just another Ya-Ya or Sweet Potato knock-off. No one likes a knock off.

People who bought my book have emailed me that they did so as my book looked like it would be a fun read.  The cover made them laugh out loud!

Personally, I don't like the cover.  I think I look crazy then again, perhaps indeed I am.  I just happen to really think that what most people perceive me as being is a party about to happen.  Don't I make reading Big Time Fun!

Indeed, I do, that is my intent but at the same time this all comes from a very small place from a very quiet, shy tomboy who grew up in a small town in Kansas, who always had her nose either stuck in a book or her head stuck up in the clouds.  I had big dreams and still do.

My personal thought on all of this is, I think an author should have more say in the cover.  I also think the author should have more say in the film.  I think the author ishould have more say period as they are the creator of the story, they are THE AUTHOR!  We should have more say in everything pertaining to the books we work and slave over until our babies are born.  But my baby is now two years old and as author, Mark Childress told me, turn that baby over to God.  I did indeed but I never give up hope that my next book, which I now call, "Kat on a Hot Tin Roof, RUSTED!  The Pulpwood Queens' Guide to Reading and Writing for a Higher Purpose", will have the cover I have envisioned in my head.  Of me, sitting up on the tin roof of my Hair Salon/Book Store, reading with my READheaded hair bent into the book while all my book club members are holding up their favorite books to me for all the world to see.

What a Wonderful World It Would be Indeed, if we had a say in our own book covers!  And seriously, perhaps then people would buy more books!  Letting someone else design my book cover is kind of like letting a stranger dress me in the morning.  Sorry, but that just will not do!

Besides, it's as I always say anyhoo, "Who Made Up That Rule?"  If you have big dreams, really big dreams, make up your own rules!  I guess that is why I call myself The Pulpwood Queen!  The ONLY rule I have is "where tiaras are mandatory and reading good books is the RULE"!  Won't you join me!

Tiara wearing, Beauty and the Book sharing,
Kathy L. Patrick
Author of "The Pulpwood Queens' Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life", Grand Central Publishing
Founder of the Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Clubs
http://www.beautyandthebook.com/
http://www.pulpwoodqueen.com/
P.S. Stay tuned too for our Book and Author Summer Concert Series here in the Pulpwood Kingdom  in the piney woods of East Texas featuring authors, Charles Martin, Ad Hudler,  David Marian Wilkinson and our Official band, Destiny Duke and the Hazzards!

The Pulpwood Queen FINALLY Came Out of the Closet on Being a Writer!

How in the world did I become a writer, this little shy girl from Kansas? I lived in a town that did not have a bookstore, or a true library in her grade school. We did have a hallway with shelves of books, but more importantly, we had teachers who believed in the power of reading aloud books. They read to us everyday after lunch, to get us settled down after our lunch and recess. Those read aloud times planting the seed for me as a writer. I became lost in the story.

I can still remember the day, Jack died in The Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Our 5th grade class was inconsolable as Mrs. Hall carried around the box of Kleenix as we balled over the loss of Laura's beloved pet. I had received a brand spanking new Smith-Corona typewriter that year from Santa and one that came with an instruction book on typing. I practiced and practiced until I had typing down pat. I was going to be a writer just like Laura and record what happened to me in my "Little House of the Flint Hills of Kansas". Only, I found my stories boring after reading them aloud boring. Laura wasn't boring, so I began to read.

I do believe that in order to become a true writer, you must become a reader first. I became a voracious reader as a child, and still am to this day, thanks to my teachers who instilled in me that love for the story. I still kept writing but it was not until my forties that I found my true voice in writing. I admire others who found it earlier but I have always been a late bloomer.

I began to write my story, my life in books and how books saved me. Such a cliched phrase but I truly believe that my reading and writing life has brought me all the passion I need for a purposeful life.

But once I began the writing process of telling my story, what to write about, what not to write about, I began to have my doubts on whether I could live up to all the authors I had placed high above me on pedestals. My favorites have always been southern authors because they have a way of telling a story to me that is so much more descriptive than other authors. Their voices sounded more familiar to me as I grew up in a family of storytellers. How could my book compare to those I revered, Pat Conroy, Mark Childress, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Eudora Welty, or my all time favorite author, Harper Lee?

The truth of the matter is I finally decided, I can't compete with those folks. All I needed to do was to be true to me. It is just that simple. All I needed to do was just tell my story like I was talking to you all in person. So as I wrote my book, I would stop and read it back aloud, just like my teachers use to read to me. It worked. I had found my voice and it echoed from the past voices of my Kansas teachers. Simple, true, and above all passionate.

My first book was published, "The Pulpwood Queens' Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing, Guide to Life" and my life was then changed forever. I had come out of the closet, so to speak as a writer, now I can say I am a published author. I turned that book over to God thanks to the wise words and advise of Mark Childress, and vowed that I would continue to read, to educate myself on being a better writer, and to stay true to myself. I tell everyone I know now my life is an open book. I try to publish everyday a story on my blog site, www.pulpwoodqueen.com. Because to get better, you have to practice, practice, practice.

What I have learned from my first book is reading has not only saved my life, but writing has too. So my next book of which I am working on now, I call, "The Pulpwood Queens' Guide to Reading and Writing for a Higher Purpose". I have found that reading books leads me and my now 250 Pulpwood Queen and Timber Guy Book Clubs to doing good works. My Anchorage, Alaska chapter flew me up for their first anniversary and I went with them as they helped start a book club in Alaska's Women Correctional Facility, The Pulpwood Queens of Hiland Meadows. My South Louisiana chapter has championed raising the funds to buy textbooks for an entire school in Nicaragua, and even just recently presented in person 100 Bibles for all the students. Now that's the reading part, you say, what about the writing?

Shortly after, I published my book I began teaching a life writing class to the homeless at Newgate Mission in Longview, Texas. I thought my life had changed from reading and writing but what has happend at Newgate has been a gift to me from God. He has given me truly a purpose to my life. We have spent the last week filming with United Methodist Television a feature that will air nationally soon on that endeavor. Writing changes lives too. I have watched it with my own eyes. I even began a book club there, The Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys of Newgate Mission.

My life is unfolding just like the story in a book. And because I want my life to have a happy ending I have thrown myself into this reading and writing life with full abandon. I now know that reading has saved me and writing has too. Won't you all join me on this literacy journey?

For more on my story or how to join the Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Clubs, go to www.beautyandthebook.com, click on Pulpwood Queens.

For more on my daily reading and writing adventures, go to www.pulpwoodqueen.com.

Last, I would like to say that reading and writing is not suppose to be a solitary adventure. Those teachers who read aloud to us small town Kansas kids had to have the interaction between the reader and the audience for the full reading experience. Reading out loud must make a big comeback. Sharing stories is what makes us more human. We also must not be so at task at writing that we forget who we are writing for, who is our reader? The one thing that makes my book club so unique is that I really try to bring each author in each month so the readers can hear their perspective of their writing process. If they cannot come in, they volunteer to call in to any of my chapters that so wishes. To read a book is one dimension, to share a book with another is another dimension, but to have the author talk to a book club is to bring the full picture into focus.

As I listed all my book club selection authors in my book and give book lists at the end of each chapter, I want people to know that there are many, many great books out there that are not getting the attention they deserve. If my reading and writing life does one thing, I hope it connects a reader with a writer that reveals they are not alone in this world but have found a home. I have built a house, a home of books, and that's where I will continue to dwell. Won't you grace my doors and join me in this reading and writing life?

Tiara wearing and Book sharing,

Kathy L. Patrick

Author of "The Pulpwood Queens' Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life", Grand Central Publishing

Founder of the Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Clubs, the largest "meeting and discussing" book club in the world!

Beauty and the Book

608 North Polk Street

Jefferson, Texas 75657

903-665-7520

www.beautyandthebook.com

www.pulpwoodqueen.com