The Pulpwood Queen If Not an Author, Bookseller, Hairdresser, Book Club Moderator, Blog Moderator, High School Youth Group Leader, Literary Chair for Rotary, would be TARZAN!

When I grew up in Eureka, Kansas, I had no idea of what I wanted to be when I grew up.  My youth revolved around nature, I spent most of my childhood outside with my two younger sisters.  We created our own world pretending to be the characters in mostly the books I was reading.  My favorite place in the whole wide world was up in a tree whether cottonwood, elm, walnut or otherwise.  If I could shimmy up in it, I would climb clear to the top and sway with the breeze in the branches.  Then I discovered TARZAN!

 I loved playing Tarzan. My sisters and I watched the movies mesmerized and I read all the books.   I was a real tomboy as a kid, I truly identified with Scout of "To Kill a Mockingbird".  I hated to wear dresses, anything girly, frilly, fou fou.  When I discovered  Tarzan, I thought man, he had it made.  All he wore was an animal skin, how cool was that?  Bare chested he would fly through the jungle swinging on these vines.  I lost all the skin on my palms summer after summer of trying to swing out of my sisters and my tree houses.  He made it look so easy.  That was my dream and then I just realized, it still is my dream.  When I grow up I want to be TARZAN!

I mean he rules the jungle.  He has a great sidekick with Cheetah.  All he has to do is this really cool yell and elephants come trumpeting!  He was always fighting off the bad guys and  me too, me too!  Whether the neighborhood bully as a kid to those individuals as an adult that are forever trying to squelch my big dreams.  Did I mention I love animals?

Yes, our dog Snickie we would pretend was Cheetah.  We even taught him, a little Jack Russell like mutt, to climb a ladder up into our tree house.  We always had to carry him down but hey, Tarzan always had Cheetah on his hip too!

Jane never interested me as she was too much like the real me, lame.  She couldn't swing through the jungle, Tarzan always had to carry her around too.  What a bummer!  Everybody was always trying to get her. She was helpless and needy.  Tarzan always had to come to her rescue.  She had to wear a full animal skin like dress sheath, how constricting and man do I hate anything constricting.  No, Tarzan had it going on. He was strong and brave. Tarzan ruled.

That was my childhood dream and fantasy, to be just like Tarzan.  Then I realized as I was writing this, that I kind of have recreated that Tarzan world right here in Jefferson, Texas.

I have a really cool clubhouse, Beauty and the Book, where I can hang with all my friends, hmm, The Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Clubs!  It's not a tree house but it is made of wood in the trees of East Texas. My bathroom is literally a jungle, come check it out!

 I have not one sidekick, like Cheetah, I have now hundreds and hundreds of sidekicks, The Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Club members.  AND we all wear animal print, perhaps more yardage than Tarzan, but leopard our my favorite. 

When I do my Tarzan yell, "WOO HOO", Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guy Book Club members come running, trumpeting too for literacy.  Last night we had a whole stampede, as it was our annual Christmas Party!

We, like Tarzan, fight off the bad guys too, we call it illiteracy!  We are on a sole mission to promote authors, books, literacy, and reading and also to help undiscovered authors get discovered in a big way!

So, yes, I have indeed become a Tarzan, so to speak, through my imagination that was fostered from librarians and teachers who mentored me that reading was important.

I now have my BOY too, actually it's my two girls, Helaina and Madeleine.  I read to them before they were born and now can say they are big readers too.  The TARZAN tradition and mission continues.

Now, my husband is, Jay, is no Jane.  He convinced my children for years that the Johnny Weismuller photo I had framed in our house where he is clad in that scrap of animal skin standing up in a tree in all his Tarzan glory was Jay when he was younger. Everytime I see that photo, I still laugh.  They bought that story big time.

 And then one year I convinced Jay that we were to go as Tarzan and Jane for the Friends of the Library Literary Ball where you were to come as book characters. They shut down that event after our appearance.  Yes, Jay wore only a scrap of animal skin over his skin colored speedos! 

 Aaahaaaahaaaahhahahahahhaha, indeed!

Come by my Beauty and the Book and I will show you the photo. I guarantee you'll get a good laugh.  It's worth the trip, consider it a Tarzan adventure!  It's a jungle alright, here at Beauty and the Book.  I may have created my own world but it's world that is filled with books and for me that is heaven on earth!

Welcome to my jungle!

Kathy L. Patrick

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

"Hairdresser to the Authors"

Founder of The Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Club, now with 403 chapters, the largest "meeting an discussing" book club in the world!

Beauty and the Book, the ONLY Hair Salon/Book Store in the country!

608 North Polk Street

Jefferson, Texas 75657

903-665-7520

kathy@beautyandthebook.com

http://www.beautyandthebook.com/

http://www.pulpwoodqueen.com/

http://www.girlfriendweekend.blogspot.com/

P.S. I also have fantisized about being a professional roller skater, country western singer, getting my own book club talk show and winning an Emmy, starring on Broadway and winning a Tony, becoming an actor and winning an Oscar on the Academy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, and perhaps being featured on "Dancing with the Stars"!  Oh wait, that's my future.  Hey, a girl can have dreams, big, big dreams!  Dreams do come true when you become a "real" reader!

The Pulpwood Queen Celebrates her 54th Birthday with this message, EAT PRAY LOVE!

The Pulpwood Queen Celebrates her 54th Birthday with this book message, EAT PRAY LOVE!




Dear Readers of A Good Blog is Hard to Find!



Some time back I read the Elizabeth Gilbert book, "eat pray love" and was taken away by this young woman traveling to Italy to revel in it's food and language, visit to India to visit an ashram, and trip to Indonesia to reconnect with a healer from Bali.  Not a southern book, but a book that let this now southern woman travel to places she always dreamed.



Growing up a small town Kansas girl my mother instilled in me a love of travel from other countries by purchasing me this set of encyclopedias that came with a letter a month then a set of books on countries that came with stickers that you placed in the book.



That's not all, I received a world globe from Santa one year and a real adult Smith Corona typewriter with typing manual my fifth grade year. I did not realize it then but she gave me all the tools I would need to travel a lifetime of learning and writing to places I have never been able to afford to go.



You see unlike the author, Elizabeth Gilbert, I have never been able to take a year off to go find myself. But I have found myself indeed, first, through the reading of books and second, from writing my story of my life in books, "The Pulpwood Queens' Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life", Grand Central Publishing.



Because of reading and writing I have been able to travel places I never dreamed I would be able to go through my imagination and more recently, in actual traveling to the places I dreamed.



I could hardly wait for the eat pray love film starring Julia Roberts because I wanted to see visually the places that I had read. A bunch of us caravanned over to Marshall, Texas, one Sunday after church, to watch the movie and like the book, I became lost in the film.



Every year I have a birthday party for myself where I invite all my friends, not for the presents, but for their presence. Then it dawned on me as we were all sharing a meal after the movie, I announced to the group, I would have an EAT PRAY LOVE Birthday Party!



The Party is tomorrow night! I have invited all my friends but if you are in the area, come join us at our house which I call Grand Central Station. Yes, it will be crowded but everyone is all bringing an Italian, Indonesian, or Indian dish! I am tackling an assortment of truly exotic shish ka bobs! I plan to outdo my last year's theme party of "Julie and Julia" where I prepared Julia Child's dishes!



I have encouraged everyone to come dressed in a costume from one of the countries to put us in the EAT PRAY LOVE spirit! The incense will be burning, the candles lit, the festive party decorations, umbrellas, and paper lanterns will be on. My house is your house, so to speak.  And the one thing about the south is, we do know how to throw a party!



Email me at kathy@beautyandthebook.com for directions. I have learned that life is about not things, but about our relationships with others. For me that is God first, my family and friends and I invite you all is not to be here in person, in spirit!



Thank you for the tremendous amount of birthday greetings. I am humbled and greatly blessed by your enormous blanket of love.



My wish for all of you on my 54th year on this planet is to indeed EAT PRAY LOVE! You can find yourself too in the reading of books and in writing your story! I encourage you all to do so. It's all about the story folks and sharing that story with others. The story you do not record or write is a library lost to your family and friends. Besides, nobody can tell your story as well as you can.  And this blog showcases some of the best southern storytellers in the country, so don't miss and comment on a single day!



Big things are happening in the Wonderful World of The Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Clubs! Won't you join us on our mission to promote literacy! I have some big southern TRAVEL plans so check out our website often at http://www.beautyandthebook.com/, click on Pulpwood Queens on how to join our book loving fun! Follow along on my daily to weekly literary travels at http://www.pulpwoodqueen.com/ and this NEW blog site I am hosting, http://www.southernauthors.blogspot.com/ as a different southern author is featured every day for the Best of the South when it comes to reading! For an excellent book loving resource, check out http://www.readinggroupguides.com/ as I occasionally do a guest feature there and of course, I am now up on Facebook, at Kathy Louise Patrick, please friend me and for my unique southern Hair Salon/Book Store, Beauty and the Book, please fan me!





And now to truly celebrate my birthday, this video, which in my opinion is the #1 Best Southern Party Band EVER, The B-52's singing, "LOVE SHACK!"



Kat on a Hot Tin Roof, RUSTED!

Kathy L. Patrick

Hairdresser to the Authors

Founder of the Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Clubs

Senior High Youth Leader for the First United Methodist Church AND

Literary Chair for The Rotary Club of Jefferson, Texas

Beauty and the Book

608 North Polk

Jefferson, Texas 75657

903-665-7520

http://www.beautyandthebook.com/

http://www.pulpwoodqueen.com/

http://www.southernauthors.blogspot.com/

http://www.readinggroupguides.com/

MY CRAZY 10 YEAR PUBLISHING JOURNEY by Maryann McFadden

Since Kathy Patrick asked us to share our publishing stories—how we got started, and all—I’m going to do just that. If you’ve heard it before, sorry! But I love telling it, because it reminds me of how lucky I am to be sitting here, published, and participating in this blog! And yes, it’s kinda long, but hey, this is 10 crazy years we’re talking about!

When I was in my forties, and my kids were heading off to college, I rediscovered a dream I’d all but forgotten, to be an author. It happened quite by accident. You see, I went back to school, too, for a Master’s in Education because I wanted to teach high school English. After a decade in real estate, I wanted security, benefits, and summers off. But a funny thing happened, in the English class we did a lot of writing, and I just LOVED IT! I hadn’t written in a decade, since leaving a freelance journalism career for real estate. But suddenly, sitting in that classroom, writing those creative pieces, something lit up inside me! I was an eleven year old girl again, pecking away at my Dad’s old Underwood manual typewriter as I wrote my first short stories. Dreaming of being an author!

I switched programs and got into a Master’s in English with a concentration in Writing and in my very first class, I created Joanna Harrison, a corporate wife in a short story who runs away to Pawleys Island. Two years later, in 1999, when I wrote my thesis, I wrote 120 pages about a corporate wife who runs away from her life in NJ to start over on Pawleys Island, SC (exactly where I’d still like to run away to!). The Richest Season was born.

After graduating, it took 2 more years for me to finish the novel, getting up at 5 am most mornings and writing before work, and also on weekends. By August of 2001, I had a 500 page manuscript, with not just Joanna, the wife’s journey, but the corporate husband, Paul’s, transforming story, as well as that of an elderly woman, Grace, who gives Joanna a job. I was so excited! This book had everything I love in it, the beauty of nature, the need to get back to the simple things in life. Rediscovering our dreams after getting caught up in the busyness of life! (And I didn’t even realize art was imitating life, it was simply subconscious!).

Well, there wasn’t a happy, tidy little ending to my story. It got rejected for the next 5 years, again and again, and I shelved it 3 times! Now there were some good moments—I got some glowing rejection letters, the best one arriving on October 11, 2001, exactly a month after 9/11. She loved the book, but the publishing world was in flux. I decided to wait a while before trying again. Later in 2002, I had a very big agent call me on the phone! From her vacation home! She wanted the manuscript exclusively, and I was jumping up and down. Two weeks later when she called again, I heard the BUT before she uttered the word… “but I wanted some humor.” I was ready to bang my head against a wall. I had no idea chick-lit was becoming a hot genre, and that’s what agents wanted. Then another agent read my manuscript and asked me to (and I swear these are her words) “ditch Paul and ditch Grace, I just want Joanna.” I realized she wanted a romance novel. I wasn’t willing to give up what I thought were 2 incredible characters.

In the meantime, I kept hearing the same refrain from friends and relatives who were reading the manuscript in a fat 3 ring binder: Your book is wonderful! Why isn’t it published?

A milestone birthday came and went. I began writing another book, while still working full time as a realtor, and I was frustrated as hell. I began to do some soul searching.

I wanted to keep writing. I didn’t want to give up. But what defined success to me as a writer? To be read! And to move people when they read my work. I wanted The Richest Season to be out there in reader land, for people to know about Joanna, Grace and Paul, three characters who I believed deserved to live in reader’s imaginations. I wanted them to fall in love with Pawleys Island, as I had more than 20 years ago.

And so I decided to take one of the biggest gambles in my life: to self-publish The Richest Season. After all, I reasoned, if I could sell houses, which I’d done very successfully for nearly 20 years by then, I could sell this book!!!

I found a small print on demand publisher in California which I’d never heard of, and I was hoping no one else had either. I wanted the book judged on its own merits, not with the stigma I knew it would carry if the truth were known.

My self-published edition of The Richest Season debuted in May, 2006. I immediately orchestrated a book launch at our local college. I sent press releases to our local weekly, and our local radio station. I hung posters all over town. But the week of the launch I was a wreck. I was now feeling like a bit of a fraud. The local paper interviewed me, took a picture, and ran an article with the headline: DREAM OF BEING PUBLISHED COMES TRUE. I thought I would die from embarrassment! Obviously, that wasn’t exactly accurate.


The night of the launch, I was scared to death. I knew most people would have no idea it was self-published. I had no idea how many would show up. Despite a torrential downpour and with little parking nearby, I managed to fill the parlors. One of the first women who came in, who’d gotten the book online—the only place it was available-- hugged me and said, “I loved your book. I wanted to live it.” I went on to sell over 100 books that night. Needless to say, I was beyond thrilled. But still…there was that nagging feeling, despite what they thought: I wasn’t the real deal. I wasn’t a real published author.

I began pounding the pavement. Getting a bookseller to read a self-published book isn’t easy. The big stores and chains simply won’t. So I focused on the independents. I went into each store with shaking knees and trembling hands, as I brought a copy of my book to one store after another.


Then something magical happened. One bookseller loved it, and then another. They began to help me, recommending the book to their book clubs, asking me to do signings. I got up the nerve to call booksellers in other states. Tom Warner at Litchfield Books in Pawleys Island (my setting), loved it and said “next time you come down, we’ll have you for a signing.” I told him, “I’m coming later this month!” (I wasn’t actually, but after he said that, I knew I had to). The next thing you know, I’m on a Southern book tour, with stops at Park Road Books in Charlotte, and McIntyre’s Fine Books near Chapel Hill! I sent press releases to all the nearby papers and got coverage, because I was that squeaky wheel, who called and emailed until they responded.

I even went to a bookseller’s convention and walked the floor, handing out review copies to some surprised booksellers, as the big name authors signed at booths, with long lines, a very humbling experience.

The next eight months were exhausting as I continued to market my novel in any way I could, while still working. I racked up 25 signings, some library and senior talks, and met with nearly 40 book clubs in 10 states, many via web cam. Reader feedback was unbelievable. I sold more then 2,000 books, what some literary books do in a lifetime, I learned. In one indie, The Richest Season went on to become their top selling trade paperback for 2006, outselling The Kite Runner.

Needless to say, I was exhausted. I had no time to write, and booksellers kept saying to me, “You have to stop selling books out of the trunk of your car (I was supplying many on consignment) and get back to writing. People are asking for your next book.”

One night in November, I decided to search for an agent again. I sent out e-mail queries loaded with all my bookseller and reader quotes, newspaper reviews, and the fact that I had several thousand readers waiting for my next book. The very next morning I got a call from The Victoria Sanders Agency, asking me for an exclusive. I agreed. Eight weeks later they called, asking me to come in.

On the last day of January in 2007, after a harrowing trip into New York that included snow, ice and a train shut-down because of a terrorist alert, I was rewarded with a smile and these words from Victoria: “This is a wonderful book!” Validation! Finally!

But we still had to sell it to a publisher. I knew I was only halfway there.

Victoria asked me to add a few scenes early in the book, something I’d already been thinking about because of all my book club discussions. In April of 2007, with those new scenes added, she sent copies of the manuscript to major publishers in New York on a Thursday. The following Monday morning she called me and said “I think we’re going to have multiple offers.” I literally jumped up and down.

Shortly afterward, she decided to hold an auction for the rights to The Richest Season. It was an exciting and nail biting time, waiting for her call. When it came, I was thrilled to learn that Hyperion Books won, offering me a 2 book hardcover deal. This was it! After years of rejection, I was the real deal!

And the astounding thing was this. All during my low moments, and there were many over this entire journey, my best friend kept singing the Disney song, “When you wish upon a star…” I then learned that Hyperion is owned by…Disney!

Within a few weeks, Random House in Germany bought German rights in a 5 way auction, and Mondadori took it in Italy in a preempt. It’s now being translated into Spanish.

In June, 2008, The Richest Season debuted in hardcover, as an INDIE NEXT PICK. The following summer, my second novel, So Happy Together, also an INDIE NEXT PICK, also debuted in hardcover. Both are now out as trade paperbacks.

I’ve just turned in my third novel, The Book Lover, about a struggling independent bookseller who discovers…a self-published author! I don’t think there’s anything out there quite like it! It’s truly fiction, though I do use a bit of my backstory, but it tells the entire journey of how a book begins in an author’s head and ends up in a reader’s hands. And it’s got lots of drama, and some great characters, you’ll just love.

As I begin the first tentative steps into my fourth novel, there are still days I can’t quite believe it’s true, that I’m a real author. And I'd nearly given up.

My advice to aspiring writers with a dream is work hard, persevere, and BELIEVE!

Maryann McFadden lives in NJ, although her heart is in the Lowcountry of SC. She was a freelance writer for ten years, then sold real estate, before returning to writing, her first love. You can read more at www.maryannmcfadden.com

Welcome to A Good Blog is Hard to Find featuring TODAY, Scarlett O'Hardy's Gone with the Wind Museum!

Dear Readers,

Good Saturday Morning!  Welcome to our southern authors blogspot!  I am the NEW facilitator for this site as author, Karin Gillespie has passed me the torch to carry on our features on fine southern authors and their stories.  One thing we know for sure, "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell is not only one of the most beloved stories of the south but has also gone international with it's story.

Here in historic Jefferson, Texas, my hometown, we have one of the most unique museums in the world dedicated to indeed, southern author, Scarlett O'Hardy's Gone with the Wind Museum.  You have to see it to believe!  The owner, Bobby Hardy, a passionate collector, has truly put together a world class museum of all things "Gone with the Wind".

Last year at our 10th Anniversary Girlfriend Weekend, I took those who stayed over for worship service Sunday to the museum that afternoon.  We we viewed  case after case of signed first edition books and memorabilia, in awe of all the costumes, movie posters, and other memorabilia, including an outstanding GWTW gift shotp, this visit was the perfect wind down to our book club festival.

Yet another reason to travel to our fare southern city, Jefferson, Texas, the Bed & Breakfast capital of the Texas.  Check out the website at http://http://www.scarlettohardy.com/ and a virtual museum tour at http://www.scarlettohardy.com/MuseumTour.htm.

So for all you southern readers this is a great literary place to road trip, but do call the museum to plan your visit. And while you are at it, my Beauty and the Book, http://www.beautyandthebook.com/ to your literary adventure, it's the ONLY Hair Salon/Book Store in the country!  Check out my Wall of Fame of Authors who have graced my door!  Some call it BOOKLAND, a reader's mecca, modeled after GRACELAND.  I even have Elvis in my shop for Kodak moments!

 Do you know of a great southern author featured site that is a don't miss adventure.  We all would love to hear about it so please comment!

Tiara wearing and Book sharing,

Kathy L. Patrick

Hairdresser to the Authors, and YES, some celebrities too!

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/

http://www.southernauthors.blogspot.com/

The Pulpwood Queen Shares Testamony of Shellie Rushing Tomlinson on my Annual Girlfriend Weekend Author Extravaganza!

Dear Readers,

For those of you just getting to know me, you have to know I run two book festivals, Books Alive, a Christian and Inspirational Book Festival always held the second weekend in November and my Annual Girlfriend Weekend Author Extravaganza both held here in historic Jefferson, Texas!  I am posting some photos from last year as Author, Shellie Rushing Tomlinson sent me an amazing testamonial of why she attends such an event!  This year, our 11th Anniversary Girlfriend Weekend will have as KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: Fannie Flagg, Pat Conroy, (back by popular demand, see above), and Rick Bragg plus over 50 other outstanding authors, musicals artists, and actors involved in all this participatory book festival.

As it is now August , just one month until the Early Bird Special for our 11th Anniversary Girlfriend Weekend expires September 1, 2010, and all tickets go UP for our big Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Club hosted convention, January 13 - 16th, 2011.



Tuesday, I will be back in the shop to take your calls as you will want to take advantage of this considerable savings on all tickets to our big ta do! Check it all out on my Event Page on my official website at http://www.beautyandthebook.com/! Also do note: I have added a PAT CONROY/BERNIE SCHEIN Luncheon on Saturday for $50 that will go up to $75 in September! This is an event you will NOT want to miss as this is Pat's best friend since high school and I assure you that we will all be highly entertained!



Now this brings me to my good friend, author, radio show host, Shellie Rushing Tomlinson! Today is my tribute to my BELLE OF ALL THINGS SOUTHERN! These are some of the highlights in photos of our times together! Shellie has sent me the most amazing testimonial that I wish to share with all of YOU! Please read every word then check out all her links! To me she is one of the funnest girlfriends I have ever met and you mention her name and I know we are going to be highly entertained.



Thank you Shellie Rushing Tomlinson for being my true friend and I bless you with tremendous book sales and all good things coming to one southern belle who rings TRUE BLUE!



Tiara wearing, Beauty and the Book sharing,

Kathy L. Patrick

Author of "The Pulpwood Queens' Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life", which is NOW the mandatory first read for all my NEW Pulpwood Queen and Timber Guy Book Club Chapters!

Founder of the Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Clubs

http://www.beautyandthebook.com/

http://www.pulpwoodqueen.com/



From Shellie Rushing Tomlinson:



I’m a relative newcomer to Kathy Patrick World. I’ve only been in the mix a few years now, but I’ve already had The Question posed to me by a number of authors. “So,” they ask, in a failed attempt to sound casual, “have you ever been to Kathy Patrick’s Girlfriend Weekend? Or is it Pulpwood Queen Weekend?” It’s both, y’all, and so much more. Clearly, word on the street has it that not being a Pulpwood Queen author is akin to leaving a hole in one’s resume large enough to drive a truck through. It’s true, too, but let the record show that while this may be a good marketing reason to mention it to your publicist, it’s not the reason to make January in Jefferson, TX a repeating event on organizer. Here’s what the authors that make the yearly jaunt to Kathy’s World know that you should to: This isn’t somewhere you go to get— meaning publicity, readers, etc. This is somewhere we get to go.

Perhaps a full disclosure and a bit of background would be order before we go any further. They call me the Belle of All Things Southern. I elbowed my own way into this industry a while back after a boring spell filing rejection slips, alphabetically, in my own ancient accordion style folder. I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer but even I could see that if I had things to say I would need to build my own perch from which to opine as the industry wasn’t exactly clamoring to publish me.

Hence, in my own version of build it and they will come, I launched All Things Southern on the Internet, and soon afterwards I snuck into radio when no one was looking. My All Things Southern radio segments now air daily on a couple dozen radio stations across the South and my talk show ATS LIVE airs on FOXFM92.7 out of Monroe, LA on Friday mornings and streams in real time from my website. Three successful self-published books after building my home-made platform, Penguin Group USA rolled the dice on me and released, “Suck Your Stomach In and Put Some Color On” What Southern Mamas Tell Their Daughters That the Rest of Y’all Should Know, Too! I attribute my reception by the Pulpwood Queens and their high-octane book clubs to be largely responsible for that first book being selected a finalist for SIBA’s 2009 Nonfiction Book of the Year as well as for the excitement about it’s soon to be released sequel, Sue Ellen’s Girl Ain’t Fat, She Just Weighs Heavy!

As much as I appreciate the Pulpwood Queens, that career boosting hand-up is not why I’ll go back to Jefferson with rings on my fingers and bells on my toes, and I mean that literally. (Excessive digit decoration is one of the milder things that can happen to those who venture into Kathy’s World.) Oh, no, I’ll return to PQW as long as the Good Lord’s willing and the creek doesn’t rise because it’s like no other author event/book festival I’ve been privileged to attend, and I’ve been to quite a few in the last few years. At PQW there are no walls and no roped off areas. It’s a word fest free for all, a place where authors mix with readers and celebrate not just their own words, but the written word at large. Think of it as book-lovers on steroids with costume parties and dance contests thrown in for good measure!

In the event that you’re still undecided, and I don’t know how that could be, but I’m trying to work with y’all, here are a ways to tell if you’re ready for a Pulpwood Queen Weekend:

If you’ve never been in a group of people so diverse that you can’t tell who’s in costume and who isn’t, you may need a PQW.

If you’ve been to one too many of those stuffy book events where you have to hide your guilty pleasure book inside the latest hard to read but sure to be a bestseller paper-weight, you may need a PQW.

If you have ever wondered if leopard skins are here to stay, you may need a PQW.

If it’s been a while since you stood on a table-top and yelled, “Go Munchkins, Go Munchkins” until your voice was hoarse in an effort to help a mother-daughter munchkin team win a dance contest, you may need a PQW.

If you’ve never spent a solid week trying to get glitter out of everything you own, including your immediate person, you may need a PQW.

If you’ve always wondered what it would be like to meet your favorite author, you may need a PQW. Chances are he or she will be there waiting on you.



Hugs,

Shellie Rushing Tomlinson









Suck Your Stomach In and Put Some Color On, What Southern Mamas Tell Their Daughters That the Rest of Y'all Should Know Too

by Shellie Rushing Tomlinson ~ Released May 08 ~ Berkley, division of Penguin Group USA



*****SIBA 2009 Nonfiction Book of the Year Finalist*****





~ All Things Southern, a radio and video show, website and FREE emag bringing you the charm and heritage of the South.

Subscribe at http://www.allthingssouthern.com



Contact Shellie to share her humorous southern stories with your club, organization, church or festival and celebrate the South!

owner/publisher Shellie Rushing Tomlinson ~ 610 Schneider Lane Lake Providence, LA 71254 ~ ph318-559-0319 ~ fx318-559-3828







You can visit me here:

Website http://www.allthingssouthern.com

My blog http://shellietomlinson.blogspot.com

My twitter page http://twitter.com/ShellieT

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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!