A Seven-Pound Book

At a recent book signing, a woman was examining me and my new book. When found out I did the cover art as well, she said with disgust, "You write AND paint? Oh, I don't like you."

"Wait a minute," I said, "I can't keep house. I'm extremely messy. How's that?"

"That's better." And she smiled, feeling slightly superior at least in one area of our lives.

Well lady, here's another imperfection. I've gained weight. There. I said it. In the last four years, two children and three books, I've gained 7.3 pounds. Not the willy nilly weight that comes and goes easily, but the boy-this-is-stubborn-I-ain't-going-nowhere kind of weight. It SEEMS, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, but this writing lifestyle does a doozy on your hind side. Authors, can I get an Amen?

So here's the deal. I have this obnoxious Weight Watchers scale in my bathroom that tells you way to much information. It's digital. It's not one of those step on and step off things with the little red arm that points to your number. It's a bit complicated, and as such, I decided to leave the big red sticker on it that tells me how to work the thing. Lest I forget between usage.

I realized something this morning about that dad-gum scale. It's a whole lot like my writing process. Let me explain.

Step 1: Tap Here

You must tap with your toe the big red sticker on the glass scale. Tapping is crucial. It gets the ball rolling. Without the tapping, nothing happens. Same in my writing. I tap into two places, my head and my heart. Tap, tap. In my writing life, I "Tapped Here" a couple months ago after I turned in my last manuscript for a book that will be coming out next spring.

Step 2: Wait for 0.0

Once you've "Tapped here", you must WAIT for the digitized 0.0 to show up before you can do anything. If you get on the scale before the 0.0 appears, you will see this: ERR

ERR. This, to me, is the most maddening part of the writing process. The waiting. The false starts. The ERRs staring me in the face. I pray, I ponder, I pay attention to anything and everything around me, searching, squeezing, pressing my brain cells and my heart for that thing, that ONE thing, that is speaking to me the loudest. That story that I must tell and commit the next however-many-months to. This, I'm afraid, is when I also begin to eat. A lot. Not only am I trying to come up with an idea, I am out promoting my book that's just come out. Raise your hand if you know that authors eating out on the road is not good for the waistline. And for me, double whammy, when my brain is in search mode, it initiates a repetitive hand-to-mouth reflex.

Thank you Lord, I'm happy to say my scale zeroed out yesterday. Hooray! No more ERR staring at me, but a put-your-finger-on-it 0.0. I have my story idea. Angels are singing somewhere. It took a while, but Whew!

Step 3: Step On

Step on. Step on. Now is the time I can step on the scale and see my present and future. I see my weight, my body fat weight, my body fat percentage, my body water, and my bone density. Uggh. This is not such a good thing. Look at all the work I have to do in so many areas. I'll have to watch my calories. I'll have to exercise. I'll have to change the way I do things in order to reach my goal. I'll admit, it looks like a lot of work. Am I up for this challenge?

The scale is like my writing life, as I said. I see my goal with this new book. I must say, the challenge is steep. Look at all the things I have to do. In the next seven months, I will have to change the way I do things, get more disciplined, more focused with my time, with my energy. I'll have to pray daily for inspiration. I'll have to exercise my mind and my fingers. At the end of this book, I want to be 75,000 words heavier and 7 pounds lighter. The challenge begins today. I'm officially in mind/body training.

See, if I don't get a handle on this, I'm doomed. At this rate, I won't be able to get out of my seat in another few books. Writing is my passion. My life. I want to keep doing this thing that maddens me and gives me such euphoric joy. I do not, however, want to gain weight with each and every book I squeeze out.

The metaphor (scale to writing) is a little cheesy, I'll admit. Mmmm. cheese. But do any of you writers find that it's easy to ignore your body and your health when you're writing? How is it that matters of the mind and heart can make us stick our body on the bottom of the priority list?

My wake up call came when I stepped on my infuriating scale this morning and saw how much work I have to do in the next seven months. But if there's one thing I've learned as a writer, it's that the best things in life are worth fighting for. The harder it is, the bigger the pay off.

I'm up for the challenge.

If any of you writers out there would like to give me your tips on beating the bulge, I'd be much obliged. Please comment or send me a note at nicole@nicoleseitz.com

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Nicole Seitz is a South Carolina Lowcountry native and the author of The Spirit of Sweetgrass as well as a freelance writer/illustrator who has published in numerous low country magazines. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Journalism, she also has a bachelor's degree in illustration from Savannah College of Art & Design. Nicole hails from Mount Pleasant, South Carolina where she writes, paints her covers, and lives with her husband and two small children. Today she is working on her next book.

Trouble the Water
Nicole Seitz
Released March 11, 2008
Thomas Nelson
Trade Paper, ISBN-10 1595544003
Visit http://www.nicoleseitz.com/

Car Buying: 101

The lot looked deserted. The only movement was the bobbing of the balloons floating from the antennas of a row of gleaming new cars. Even though I couldn't see him, I knew he was lurking in the shadows, eager to pounce on his prey.

The minute I opened the door, he'd be on me like a hyena on a zebra carcass, pumping my arm and showering me with business cards. There was no way he was going to let me leave the lot without making a down payment.

I hate buying a new car. Even dealership commercials can send me into a tizzy. I'll be listening to the soft-rock station when the dulcet tones of Barry Manilow are replaced with someone bellowing, "No money down delivers!" The cacophony continues, followed by low mumblings about exclusions of tax and title and the necessity of surrendering one's first-born child.

The horrific memories linger from the last time I bought a car.
Six years later, here I am again, a lamb ready for the slaughter.
For a minute, I lose my nerve and try to escape, but the car lot is a labyrinth with no quick exits.

The minute I close my car door, a salesman is at my side.

"I'm just looking!"

"Whoa," he says. "No need to be stressed. We're very low pressure around here."

"Ha! That's what they all say."

I slink through the aisles of cars, expecting to be relentlessly shadowed by the salesman, but he unexpectedly hangs back.

"I'd like to test drive this one," I tell him. "But don't get any crazy ideas. I'm still just browsing."

"Here you go," he says, tossing me the keys. "Have a good drive."

"You're not coming with me?" I demand.

He shook his head. What was with this guy? Was he using some sort of psychological warfare on me?

"OK," I said after I returned. "I'm interested in this car, but I don't want a long, torturous process where you play good-cop, bad-cop with the sales manager. Understood?"

"Gotcha," he said agreeably.

When we went to his office, I gave him a low-ball offer, waiting for him to give me the inevitable look of pain and utter betrayal. Instead he simply said, "OK. Let's draw up the papers."

I watched in disbelief as he prepared the contract. Where are all the hidden charges?

"Now if you'll step into the business manager's office," he said. "He'll finish you up."

So this was his evil plan. "Finish me up" was the code phrase for unleashing shock and awe on my checkbook.

"I don't want an extended warranty!" I screamed as I entered the office.

"That's fine, Ms. Gillespie. You're all set. Come back and see us."As far as I could tell, he was serious. Had I actually bought a car without tears and teeth gnashing? Hmmm, maybe I would come back after all.


Karin Gillespie is the founder of this blog. Visit her at http://www.karenneches.com/ or http://www.karingillespie.com/

Guest Interview: Dorothea Benton Frank

Dorothea Benton Frank (or the “Dottted One” as Pat Conroy calls her) has a new book out called Bulls Island. It’ll release on April 8.

Twenty years ago, Elizabeth "Betts" McGee was engaged to JD Langley, a member of South Carolina's original (and wealthiest) blueblood family.Neither respective kin, however, seemed all too pleased about the impending (and mismatched) nuptials. Then, one night, Betts' mother is killed in a horrific car accident - and, with social tensions running high, fingers are pointed, voices raised, and hearts forever broken. Now, two decades later, Betts must venture back to the hometown she fled in order to save it from overzealous land developers. However, when she is finally reunited with all she once cared for, more than memories come rushing back. In a land where tradition runs deep - and secrets even deeper - Betts wonders if she wants to do more than just remember
for the rest of her days.

Kirkus Reviews calls it "A warming tale with a side order of Southern magic.”


Q. What was the inspiration for Bulls Island?

A. Inspiration for BULLS ISLAND arrived the same as it did for my other
books - it's that little voice in your head that says What if? I was
reading something in the NY Times about protected islands being
decommissioned and made available for public use and I thought well,
that could never happen to Bulls Island. Or what if it did? And how
could that actually unfold?

Then I started thinking about the story and knew it should be a struggle
to save it, to preserve its pristine habitats, and that the struggle
should expand to the people determined to develop it versus the people
to whom it was unclear if this was a sound idea - was it environmentally
ethical? Or was it just another case of greed? And what if those
opposing teams were comprised of star crossed lovers, long separated and
perhaps by a tragedy? What if they happened to bump into each other
across a conference table?

And what if every character in the story had a secret - some bull they
were hiding and on the bull scale it could go from zero to a billion?

That's how the process starts . . .

Q. You now live in the New York area. Why did you make the move and
what are some of the things you miss about the South when you're gone?

A. I have lived in the New York area for almost thirty years. I moved here
for career opportunities and because my husband and I divide our time
between here and Charleston where we own a home and our two children are
in college spending every last dime we earn, we sincerely thank you for
your support. I don't miss Charleston too badly because luckily I am
there all the time. And I adore New York. Who doesn't? It's a
Disneyland for adults!

Q. What are some of the wonders about the low country that intrigues
you so?

A. So many things - too numerous to list but certainly there are standouts
such as all that blue sky, all the stars at night and all the glistening
water. I love the bird song, the sultry heat but perhaps most of all I
love the history of the Lowcountry. As you might already know, it's the
blood soaked land of my ancestors and probably some of yours. I like
the quiet and the serenity of it. And I love the idea that you can drop
a hook and catch a fish.

Q. How long does it take you to write your novels and what is your
process? Do you outline or write by the seat of your pants?

A. Finishing it on time and then letting it go. As usual I always wish I
had another three or four months to work on it, to tell more, to be with
those characters longer. I really loved the folks in this book, even
the bad guys, and I hated telling them goodbye. Sequel? You tell me!

Q. What was the most challenging aspect of writing BULLS ISLAND?

A. It takes forever and then it's over in an instant. Basically, I write a
book every year which, in addition to all the related activities that
come along with that, is a challenge. I am very organized - note I said
very and not extremely - and I really like what I do. Thinking up plots
is great fun and being finished is fabulous. The time in between is
very hard work. I use an outline that is constantly revised. My novels
are too populated and busy not to have a road map.

Q. Have you already written your next book? What can readers expect
next?

A. Merciful mother! No! But I am in the outline stage and it is a sequel
to SULLIVANS ISLAND, my first book.

Q. What books are on your bedside table right now?

A. THE POSITION by Meg Wolitzer, RUN by Ann Patchett, CHESIL BEACH by Ian
McEwen and ALL HE EVER WANTED by Anita Shreve.

The Amish are Coming!

by Sarah Smiley

A few weeks ago, a friend knocked on my door and handed me a ziplock bag filled with goo. Attached to the bag was a printout titled “Amish Friendship Bread.”

“You just feed this batter and then cook it to make bread,” the friend said.

It sounded easy enough. And with a name like “Amish Friendship Bread,” how could it be anything but? For the first few days, the goo-filled bag sat innocently enough on my kitchen counter. The batter in the bottom filled only about one-eighth of the bag. I wondered how such a tiny amount of batter would ever make two loves of bread, plus four more bags of goo, as the instructions said it would.

On the fourth day, I added milk, sugar and flour to the batter.

“Are you sure I still leave this thing out on the counter?” I asked my friend. “Even though it has milk in it now?”

“Yep,” she said, a tinge of delight in her voice, as if she was keeping a secret, like waiting for me to sit on a whoopee cushion.

The day after I added milk, sugar and flour, and continued to leave the bag on the kitchen counter, despite my better judgment and my mother’s voice in the my head telling me to always put the milk back in the refrigerator, I woke to the smell of beer. Fermented beer. In the kitchen, the goo was growing. The ziplock bag was so full of air, it looked as bloated and gassy as my stomach feels after Thanksgiving dinner. Overnight, the batter had doubled in size. Or, if you’d rather, it had procreated.

“It’s like a beast,” I said out loud. My children looked scared.

“Stop feeding it,” Owen, 5, said.

“We don’t really need bread, do we?” asked Ford, 7.

I let air out of the bag and reassured the children that the batter would not take over our house, even though I wasn’t entirely sure of that myself. I was beginning to see how the “beast” would eventually make two loaves of bread and four extra bags of beastlings.

The instructions warned that after making the bread, if you failed to keep a beastling for yourself, you would have to wait for a friend to give one back to you, because “only the Amish know how to make the starter.” This seemed like a vague threat to me. The beast--I mean, batter--had been passed down from neighbor to neighbor for hundreds of years. If I broke the chain, I feared that something awful--something like receiving the Amish Unfriendly Bread next time--would happen.

By the end of the week, I found myself very afraid of the growing batter on my kitchen counter. I eyed it when I walked into the room, and I never turned my back on it. Like a dragon curled up next to my coffee pot, the bag spit out air, hissed, and made bad smells. I wasn’t sure I wanted to make bread with it.

Finally the day came when I could unleash the beast and add normal things like eggs, vanilla, and cinnamon to it, which I hoped would mask the smell. When I was done baking, I had two delicious loaves of bread and four bags of beastlings to disperse. It occurred to me then that if the Amish ever wanted to kill off an entire species of non-Amish people slowly over time, they could probably do it with this never-ending bread that people willingly--gleefully, even--pass on to their neighbors, four at a time.

My husband, Dustin, a Navy pilot, took the extra bags of batter and one loaf of bread to the squadron and dared people to take it home to their wives. I suspect it was one of the first (and last) times something Amish came onto a Navy base. If the batter could speak, which over time it may learn to do, I think it would have protested and called itself a Conscientious Objector.

Kathy, who works in the same office with Dustin, was up for the challenge and took a beastling home. Over the next week, I received several panicked calls from her. “Are you sure I leave it on the counter? Will it explode? Is it supposed to smell like this?”

The cycle continued, as the Amish have intended it to do for hundreds of years.

Yesterday I got another call from Kathy. She had made the bread, produced four beastlings, and sent one to her military-spouse daughter in North Carolina, who, like so many before her, was afraid at first, but carried on and made the bread anyway. She sent a loaf to her husband in Afghanistan and passed four bags of goo on to her military-spouse friends.

Which is to say, the batter continues to grow and reproduce, and now it has infiltrated the military. Don’t open your door; you could be next.

Becoming the Road Kill of Your Own Life


“What’s a ‘Spasm of the Sphincter of Oddi?’” I was following Daddy up and down the hall asking him questions, trying to figure out how to cope with the incomprehensible jumble of medical paperwork that I was temporarily responsible for.
“What?” he replied.
“A ‘Spasm of the Sphincter of Oddi?’ It’s here in the Medicare codebook. What is it? It sounds awful."
“It doesn’t matter what it is, because nobody here’s got it. How about Mrs. Holloway’s ankle? Did you find the number for that?”
“Maybe. Was it fractured?”
“No.”
“Is it a ‘pain,’ a ‘strain,’ or a ‘sprain?’”
“A sprain.”
“Okay, then I got that one. But where’s the Sphincter of Oddi?” Too late. Daddy had already ducked into another examining room. He kept doing that, leaving me alone, adrift, in the hall.

It was my first day on my emergency temp job, some 18 hours after Momma’d had a heart attack and extorted a promise from me to leave Washington and my glamorous job as a U.S. Senate lawyer and come home to fill in for her for a couple of days while she recovered.

Only someone who’d grown up in my family would fall for the “couple of days” thing, but Momma’d never missed a single day of work in nearly 40 years. She was the receptionist and jack-of-all-trades sidekick for my father in his tiny Smoky Mountain family medical office. And anyway, even if I didn’t totally buy the extremely short-term nature of my appointment, how could anyone say no to their mother when she was begging them from a gurney in ICU?

There are surely better examples of government programs that started out as good ideas and ended up in a hopeless muddle, but I’d never encountered one as spectacular as the Medicare coding system. When I was a teenager I’d been able to fill out insurance forms easily, but now that I was over 40 and the government had allowed its legions of “experts” to interfere, the mysteries of the new “streamlined” system were beyond my ability to penetrate. Since I was a writer of laws and regulations myself, I found this infuriating.

I waited in the hall leafing through the coding manual, a book as thick as a phone directory for a major metropolitan area, filled with tiny print and even tinier alphanumeric codes waiting for Daddy to come out again.
“You’re not going to believe this! There’s a code in here for ‘Decapitation, Legal Execution (by guillotine)!’”

“Don’t have any of those here today either,” he mumbled.

I pondered what sort of treatment a senior citizen could possibly need after having their head chopped off. I was enraged that some poor schmuck like me in every doctor’s office in the nation had to pass this provision coming and going every time they needed to find the code for a sore throat or a stomach ache.

I stood in the doorway of Room 3 while Daddy looked in Mr. Maynard’s ear. I’d known Mr. Maynard all my life, so I didn’t hesitate to continue my monolog, especially since he was nearly deaf. “I bet none of the fools who wrote these codes have ever had a real job in their lives,” I said. “They’re all a bunch of hogs at the government trough who’ve never worked a single day in the real world. If they ever tried it, maybe they’d actually learn something.”

At that Daddy turned and gave me a deceptively mild stare.
Uh oh.

My august career flashed before my eyes: Special Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Chief Counsel U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Federalism, and the District of Columbia, Counsel U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Nuclear Regulation…
I stopped in mid-harangue and went back to Momma’s desk considerably chastened – until I turned a few more pages.

“My God! They’ve assigned a code number to ‘Accident Involving Spacecraft, Includes Launching Pad Accident, Excludes Effects of Weightlessness in Spacecraft’!”

Although one of my bosses, John Glenn, actually went into space again at age 77, surely such an event was only slightly more common than filing a Medicare claim after getting guillotined. So, why write a specific code for it and kill thousands of trees to print it in millions of code books?

I made a silent vow to myself that the Environment Committee would be looking into this as soon as I got back. But then I wondered if maybe I was kidding myself about my own competence and service to the public.
To the outside world, a return to Washington would look like the right thing to do. Washington was ground zero for public service, right? From Washington I could serve a lot more of the public and it would be a lot more fun to serve them from a Lear Jet while wearing tailored cashmere than it was to have to swab up barf from the working poor while wearing a $19 pair of scrubs that made me look like….a nobody.

What kind of person would give up everything they’d ever dreamed of to work an unpaid job for their cranky father? Apparently I would, because at age 45 I moved into my parent’s basement and embarked on a new life as the world’s most reluctant and inept medical receptionist.

I stepped out of the fast lane, climbed down the ladder of success, and “ruined” my life so a bunch of poor people would have access to medical care.
And, surprise, surprise, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Named a Best Book Club Book of 2007-2008 by Book Sense and The Literary Guild.
Honored as the first ever Book of the Month for Family Circle magazine.
Awarded a Readers’ Prize by Elle magazine. Raves in a wide variety of industry publications and newspapers nationwide. http://www.carolynjourdan.com/

The Pulpwood Queen Magical, Mystical "HOT PINK" Carpet Ride through Reading!

Recently, I received a call from Washington, D.C. U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's office was calling. The Senator was going to be in my area and she very much wanted to meet me. Would I be interested in doing a book signing for her and her latest book "Leading Ladies: American Trailblazers?Indeed, "I would love to meet Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison,", I so exclaimed. "When perhaps would this event need to take place, " I inquired. "Next week," was the answer. I did not have much time to roll out my magical, mystical "HOT PINK" carpet!

I am one that tends to fly by the seat of her skirt and somehow I managed to pull off the big event with Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison with such short notice. We had a sizable crowd and I think everybody was as thrilled as I was to meet such a powerful Texan. Meeting her was a pleasure and a privilege that I do not take lightly as a bookseller, quite frankly as an American. This is the only business that I know of where you get to meet the most interesting and incredible people in the world.Most recently I hosted my biggest book event of the year, Girlfriend Weekend, where almost fifty authors, speakers, some celebrities, and musical artists come to East Texas for our big book loving convention. I am continually amazed by the caliber of authors I convince to travel to my often overlooked part of the state. I am the pied piper of book selling! We have had Kinky Friedman who was at the time running for Governor of Texas. Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, television writer, film director and creator of "Designing Women". National Book Award winners Kimberly Willis Holt and Mary McGarrity Morris have traveled to my shop to speak. Rue McLanahan star of stage, television and screen came for a visit. Pulitzer prize winning political cartoonist, Doug Marlette and journalist, Edward Hume graced our doors.

Most recently Czech supermodel, Paulina Porizkova was a keynote author speaker.Those are the famous authors but we have had hundreds of authors who were yet undiscovered, Michael Morris, Denise Hildreth, Charles Martin, Ron Rash, Darnell Arnoult, Lynn York, Virginia Boyd, Carolyn Turgeon, and Margaret Sartor to name just a few.Some authors who came have become New York Times bestseller list famous: Cassandra King, Jeanette Walls, Lalita Tademy, and Debbie Rodriguez.

So as I was sitting shaking my head at disbelief at WHY these authors do come to my Beauty and the Book, I realized something. Anything is possible if you become a real reader!I was as a child invisible. I was so painfully shy that I escaped into books to get away from life that seemed to frightening for me to bear. Through those books I became brave, braver, and bravest. I am fearless now that I have become a real reader! Nothing can stop me from sharing my message that reading is important.

In fact, I do believe that reading is the one tool that can help us attain the knowledge that can empower us to attain our goals and dreams.As a child, I never dreamed I would meet the people that I have met today. I would have told people they were crazy if they told me a U.S. Senator would want to meet me in person. I also realize that the power of the Pulpwood Queens is growing and this queen knows that with power comes temptations.

But the one thing that keeps me grounded is the fact that I come from humble beginnings. I will always be that little kid from Kansas who dreamed of somewhere over the rainbow. Now that I have landed in the Land of Oz it is time for me to say that I also have learned that Dorothy would never had as much of adventure without her friends, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Lion. I call my friends, the Pulpwood Queen Posse'. They are my book club members. These are the women and yes, men, (Timber Guys) who help run my events while I am in the limelight!

I may be center stage right now but to all my Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys out there, I know that I could never be where I am right now without all of you. AND the authors too! My goodness, what authors have done for me is pretty incredible. I have always held authors in the highest esteem, up on a pedestal, but what I never dreamed possible is that they would lift me even higher.So this blog today is a thank you to all the people who I have not properly thanked. My Pulpwood Queen Book Club members, my author friends, and their publishers who help support this small independent bookseller.

This is a thank you to the independent bookstore owners and chain bookstore managers and event coordinators who rolled out the "hot pink" carpet for me while I was on my book tour. The many radio stations, newspapers and television stations who helped me spread the word that reading is indeed importantIf I had one wish this bright, sunny, spring day is that each of you would get your day in the sun! I am convinced that there is no real money in books. I have worked on just about every side of the table from lowly bookseller, to children's book buyer and manager, to book publisher's representative, to bookstore owner, book club facilitator's, to published author. The only thing I have not done yet is be a literary agent or publisher but hey, I'm only 51, I have half my life ahead of me.

And even though I have not seen much money in books personally, I have received a wealth way beyond something as tangible as cold, hard cash. I have a book family that loves me as I love them. I watched an amazing film last night, (besides being a book buff, I adore film too). The film was "Across the Universe" starring Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess, Dana Fuchs, Martin Luther McCoy, Bono, Joe Cocker, and Eddie Izzard. The film was a musical based on the songs and songwriting of The Beatles. If Margaret Sartor's nonfiction book of the diary of her life from 13 to 18, "Miss American Pie" was a mirror reflection of my life at that same age, then "Across the Universe" was the musical reflection of my era. We are a product of "our times" and just like the film "we all want to change the world".

I just happen to think one person can, in my case, one book, one person, one book club at a time will lead this world to world peace. Yes, this "beauty within" queen declares her biggest desire is "world peace" and I happen to believe that it can be attained by reading!Just like the film, "All We Need Is Love". The message was love will take you anywhere and for me love of reading will take you everywhere. Won't you join me and we too can have a book "REVOLUTION!" As always, I look forward to your responses and replies.

Tiara wearing and Book and Film sharing,Kathy L. PatrickFounder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Clubshttp://www.beautyandthebook.com/, official website!http://www.pulpwoodqueen.com/, official daily blog site!http://www.readinggroupguides.com/ of where I am now contributing to their blog site!P.S. Psst! What the Pulpwood Queen is Reading! or Five Diamonds in my Pulpwood Queen Tiara!"same kind of different as me" by Ron Hall and Denver Moore with authors to speak at T.G. Field auditorium, April 9th as a fund raiser for the homeless shelter in Longview, Texas. I'm taking the Pulpwood Queen Posse' and my church. You have to read this book and it will change your life. It did mine! I discovered this book at yes, Wal-mart as I always check out the competition. I am glad I did.The Chicken Dance by Jacques Couvillion is a book we read aloud on book tour that captured our hearts and I have the author coming hopefully this June! I'm making deviled eggs, ha ha ha! Thank you to the mysterious woman who gave this book to one of my Pulpwood Queens at my booksigning in Nashville. I would like to thank you personally so please come forward to be recognized. And to Elizabeth Grant-Gibson of Windows, a bookshop, who also told me this was a great read and brought me some of her signed copies for my shop. Sold out my friend and had to order more!Leading Ladies: American Trailblazers by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, (I have signed first edition copies, great gift book and planning to give to all my daughters friends upon their high school graduation!

Thank you Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison for bringing your book to my attention.The Shadow and the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafo'n and on of the best books I have ever read. I wish I had written this book, it's just that good and THE book for rabid book lovers as it will get you from the get-go with the visit to the Cementery of Forgotten Books. How magical and mystical is that? For the life of me I cannot remember the bookseller's name at the Davis-Kidd store who forced me to buy this book. If you would please come forward and let me know, I will thank you personally.

Women of Magdalene by Rosemary Poole Carter, I have the author coming for our Pilgrimage weekend and since the book is set in civil war times, she is even bringing this incredible musical artist, Wava Everton, who specializes in the songs of civil war times. Incredible and will haunt you like "Cold Mountain" by Charles Frazier. I

invited Rosemary and Wava here for my Girlfriend Weekend and bringing them back for a command performance the first weekend in May.Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande is one book that will make you understand the medical profession in such a way that Khaled Hussein made us understand the people and culture of Afghanistan. This book was handed to me and recommended by my minister, Allison Byerley of The First United Methodist Church of Jefferson, Texas.

Last I would like to recommend you watch the film "Blood Diamond" starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly, and Djimon Hounsou. One of the most powerful films I have ever seen as I watched on the edge of my seat, heart wrenching. The story of an ex-mercenary turned smuggler (DiCaprio),a Mende fisherman (Hounsou), and a journalist (Connelly) set in Sierra Leone during a 1999 civil war involving two desperate missions: recovering a rare pink diamond and rescuing a the fisherman's son who was kidnapped and brainwashed into being a child soldier. T

hen read: A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Child Soldier by Ishmael Beah. A "Book and a Movie" make a perfect combination for book club discussion. Thank you Pulpwood Queen Jean Wright who brought me this book and told me it was a must read. So now you know how I discover such great reads!

Debutantes, Dior, and Dead Bodies, Y'all by Stephanie Bond

I love, love, love to set stories in Atlanta. Atlanta features the busiest airport in the world, major news and cable company conglomerates, a dense downtown area, an eclectic midtown and outlying areas such as Little Five Points, the upscale retail and residential corridor of Buckhead, sprawling, wealthy suburbs, rural farm conditions, and within an hour’s drive, the foothills of the picturesque Georgia mountains and the approach to the Appalachian Trail. There’s no story or character that can’t find a place to settle in the expansive metropolitan reach of Atlanta. But a few myths about the city persist.

For example, Atlanta is the setting for my Body Movers sexy mystery series in which Carlotta Wren works for Neiman Marcus by day and helps her brother move bodies from crime scenes by night. Three years and three books into the series (2 Bodies for the Price of 1 was released last year, 3 Men and a Body will be released at the end of July), I still receive emails from readers asking why Carlotta doesn’t say “y’all.”

The reason is (fans of The Closer and the character Brenda Johnson, I’m sorry to burst your bubble) no thirty-year-old woman raised in Atlanta says “y’all.” Carlotta’s grandmother would…her mother might…but not Carlotta herself. Perhaps the greatest challenge—and thrill—of setting stories in Atlanta is reconciling perception with reality. A contemporary, sophisticated Atlanta is what I try to portray in my mystery series: Carlotta works for Neiman’s and is a bona fide designer clotheshorse. She rides public transportation. She doesn’t cook. And she’s slept with men that she subsequently didn’t marry.

Sounds more like a young woman living in Manhattan, doesn’t it? Yet setting the Body Movers series in Atlanta provides built-in conflict (and in my books, humor) because of the very stereotypes and romantic quaintness that outsiders project onto people who live here. For example, if the word “y’all” ever comes out of Carlotta’s mouth, she’s probably manipulating the unwitting person (man) she’s talking to! I wanted Carlotta to embody all the drive and resourcefulness of an urban woman, with just a hint of girly, southern charm. So I gave her an entitled, genteel background up through the age of 18, only to have it ripped away when her parents skipped town after her father was indicted for a white collar crime. Carlotta was left to raise her younger brother and because of her father’s actions, she was ostracized from her social circle. By juxtaposing two lifestyles associated with Atlanta (social acceptance matters in this town, but so does stubborn independence), Carlotta is plunged into inherent and constant conflict.

Fast forward ten years to when the series begins and Carlotta threatens her lovable but troublesome younger brother (who has amassed gambling debt to two loan sharks) to get a job or get out. She doesn’t expect him to get a job moving bodies for the morgue—nor does she expect to get pulled into the world of body-moving herself! Once again, the juxtaposition of her glamorous day job at Neiman’s and her creepy night job as a body mover makes for great conflict. And I can’t think of a better setting than Atlanta to pull off these powerful contrasts—a young urban woman versus traditional southern female roles and expectations (including, as mentioned above, reader expectations of a southern woman, real or perceived). Carlotta’s fortitude is further tested by playing salesclerk to women who once were her social peers. And then there are the contrasts between Carlotta’s three potential love interests: the blueblood aristocrat stock broker who is her former fiancé, the blue-collar cop who has reopened her fugitive parents’ case, and her brother’s intellectual but underemployed body-moving boss. Each man represents a slice of Atlanta’s socioeconomic makeup.

From this writer’s perspective, the setting of Atlanta provides limitless possibilities for mixing people of all walks of life, for throwing together native Atlantans with transplants and watching the chaos that ensues when cultures clash. Toss in great southern food, historical architecture, a vibrant arts scene, every professional sport, a burgeoning recording industry, celebrity sightings, a world-class aquarium, unbridled economic growth, and fantastic weather (barring the freak tornado), and it’s this fiction writer’s dream setting.

Granted, Atlanta has its shortcomings and image problems—the 1996 Olympic Centennial Park bombing comes to mind, as does the 2005 courtroom rampage of Brian Nichols, and race relations are always in the news. Plus the city is gritty and humid, with teeming traffic that would make a preacher homicidal…and trust me, you don’t want to know what I pay in property taxes! But those are the sundry traits that make Atlanta not just a setting, but a powerful character in my Body Movers series, with all the internal and external conflict of any worthwhile, complex character. I love this city. And frankly, my dears, I can’t imagine my quirky, contemporary mystery series unfolding anywhere else.

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Stephanie Bond is the RITA-award winning author of over 40 romantic comedies, humorous romantic suspense novels, and the Body Movers mystery series set in Atlanta, where Stephanie lives with her architect/artist husband. Check out her Open Book online journal for writers and readers at stephaniebond.com.