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February 2007
INTRODUCING “TIMBER GUY OF THE YEAR”, J. BROOKS DANN!
Girlfriend Weekend 2007 has come and gone and I decided that I would finally, (after recovering from too much fun), write about the experience. Then author, J. Brooks Dann started sending me his blog reports on the weekend. I, as always, if labeled prefer “reader” and read is exactly what I did when those Girlfriend Weekend report blogs started rolling in. I laughed until I cried. I also love a man’s take on Girlfriend Weekend. I have copied and pasted in his first report. After reading his highly humorous first report may I suggest you now go to his blog site direct to read all the following reports at: http://www.jbrooksdann.com/. There are many more and each one is a hoot! They had me laughing so loud that my teenagers came clamoring down the stairs to see exactly why their mother was in stitches. Maybe all you guys who are secure in your masculinity and are literacy supporters will now join us in our book loving fun. We are an equal opportunity book club. We just cannot seem to get many guys to join our book club. Don’t let the name Pulpwood Queens fool you. We could just as easily be The Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Clubs. We just have to get more than like ten male members in our hundreds of chapters nationwide and worldwide now too!
So read Jeremy’s take below and if you like what you read, check out J. Brooks Dann’s first novel “Anecdotal”. You heard it from me first. Here is a writer and talent to watch. I also might mention I am not alone in my admiration of Jeremy’s work. He was voted by the most applause at our Girlfriend Weekend HAIR BALL, TIMBER GUY OF THE YEAR! He had some pretty stiff competition but his singing me “Lady” sent the audience into a thunderous round of applause!
Bowing to the feet of our NEW KING, introducing J. BROOKS DANN!
Tiara wearing, Timber Guy of the Year and book sharing, Kathy L. Patrick Founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Club P.S. Go to my website HOME page to view photos of our Girlfriend Weekend and of J. Brooks Dann, TIMBER GUY OF THE YEAR!
Girlfriend Weekend: My Pulpwood Queen Odyssey Begins
I first met Kathy Patrick, doyenne of the teeming book club known as the Pulpwood Queens, at the Book Group Expo in San Jose last summer. Kathy was hard to miss: she was the only person wearing a tiara. It was a little strange, because, as everyone in the Bay Area knows, you never wear a tiara before Labor Day.
Kathy’s Pulpwood Queen chapters span Texas, the southeast and several other states, a virtual literary empire sending tribute to the seat of power in Jefferson, Texas. Actually, there are several seats of power, since Kathy’s headquarters is a book store/beauty parlor featuring a multitude of seats for the requisite shampooing, cutting, drying, dyeing and other assorted and sundry activities. But don’t let the bottles of Paul Mitchell shampoos and platinum dyes fool ya: the Pulpwood Queens are a serious literary force, features in tons of publications and even on ABC’s Good Morning America.
I was flattered when Kathy invited me to be one of the featured authors at the “Girlfriend Weekend,” the yearly book and bouffant bash that attracts hundreds of Pulpwood Queens. Pretty much all I knew about the Girlfriend Weekend was from this photo.
But then again, that’s pretty much all I needed to know. I loaded up a couple boxes of books, a pack of Sharpie and hit the road to Marshall, the East Texas town hosting the mega-event.
What happened over the next three days shook me to my core.
More to follow.
Check out the rest of the Jeremy’s blogs on the weekend by going to: http://www.jbrooksdann.com/
FORGET THE FLU, SUFFERING FROM TOO MUCH FUN!
I work all year on my annual Pulpwood Queen Girlfriend Weekend booking authors, planning, and coordinating all the events, authors and attendees from travel to paneled sessions. I never work harder in the final days before the event, which is celebration of women, girlfriends, authors, books, literacy and BIG TIME FUN! Then when the event hits, it’s no sleep and TOO MUCH FUN! Consequentially, it takes me weeks for my 50 year old body, mind, and spirit to recover. I seriously think my eyes did not uncross and focus for at least two weeks after the event but is it worth it! Absolutely! I never have had so much fun in my entire life.
Our OFFICIAL sponsor The Marshall News Messenger wrote a kazillion features on this event that are on their website, www.marshallnewsmessenger.com or mine, www.beautyandthebook.com. Besides all their front page features we even made the front page of The Dallas Morning News. Check it out at www.dallasmorningnews.com and type Girlfriend Weekend in Search box. There is a video too on their website.
Now I kept meaning to blog the event then the authors started writing features about the event. Like this one below from author, Ron Hogan:
mediabistro.com/…/scenepulpwoodgirlfriendsweekend51515.asp -
Or this wonderful feature from Carolyn Turgeon, (author of Pulpwood Queen Book Club Selection “Rain Village”), for the website Shelf Awareness:
Carolyn Turgeon’s Pulpwood Queens’ Girlfriend Weekend
Shelf Awareness The weekend before last I traveled to Marshall, Tex., the small-town setting for this year’s Pulpwood Queens’ Girlfriend Weekend, an annual event held in East Texas since 2001. Members of the Pulpwood Queens—the largest meeting and discussion book club in the country, according to founder Kathy Patrick—come to meet with authors, buy books and jewelry, and don their most fabulous leopard print duds and rhinestone pins for the weekend’s highlight, the Hair Ball.
I went to the event as a Pulpwood Queens author whose debut novel will be read by the club this April (Kathy selects the books that the “thousands” of members in the club’s more than 100 chapters read each month), but I felt far more like a fan than an attraction. I was a fan of the nearly 60 authors present—I bought a bunch of books and ran around getting them signed when I probably should have been hawking my own—and a fan of the few hundred Pulpwood Queens who were there, women who gather once a month in each other’s houses or at local restaurants and embrace Patrick’s idea that reading is as fun as it is important. At the Friday afternoon press conference, Kathy was unmistakable when she swept in: vivacious, larger than life, a fun-loving, tiara-wearing blonde Texas woman decked out in fake fur and rhinestones. She is also deeply passionate about books. Underlying all the fun and big hair is a serious commitment to spreading literacy, especially to readers who might otherwise never meet an author or gather around a table to talk about a book. Her enthusiasm is infectious: at one point she pulled me and Margaret Sartor aside and as she described Margaret’s book American Pie, I honestly felt like I had to have at that book that very instant. I remember watching Oprah describe White Oleander—“liquid poetry!!”—and feeling the same way. The weekend events started on Friday night, when everyone met up at the Marshall for a night of music and improvised skits, emceed by Phil Doran and featuring a hilarious sketch in which author River Jordan impersonated Kathy Patrick in a blonde wig, as host of the Okra Show. Saturday was an all-day author extravaganza, with a series of panels upstairs and downstairs. In between, long lines formed in the book room, where Barnes & Noble sold stacks of each author’s books. I was on the “Authors Who Have Mastered the Art of Storytelling” panel, and, having never sat on a panel before, I was more than a little nervous. I quickly realized that this was as fun and low-pressure as it gets: we just talked about our books one by one, and how we came up with our ideas, and the audience was attentive and sweet (and sparkling). Afterwards, several women touched my arm or patted my shoulder as I walked by, to tell me how much they’d enjoyed it. The whole weekend was like that; the authors were all friendly and having a great time, as were the Pulpwood Queens themselves. And I met a ton of great authors: laid-back Montana writer Cindy Dyson, charming Louisianan Ronlyn Domingue, elegant, stately New Englander Mary McGarry Morris and Californian newcomer Amy Wallen, to name just a few. The crazy (and hair) reached new heights at Saturday night’s Hair Ball, where group after group of ladies arrived decked out in their finest and flashiest attire and posed under the PULPWOOD Hollywood-style sign on one wall. One sleek grey-haired woman wore a glittering silver gown, the picture of elegance. One group was dressed as Marilyn Monroe. Another woman went as Cher. Author Kathi Kamen Goldmark showed up in a wig with two white cones jutting from the top. A highlight was the Timber Man contest, where male authors like William Cobb, Ron Hogan and Robert Dalby got out and danced for the coveted prize. The three finalists, chosen by applause, had to sing to Kathy, and when J. Brooks Dann belted out “Lady,” we all knew he had it in the bag. It was anything goes. I found myself dancing for hours and whooping it up Texas style. Lord knows what was caught on camera. When the party wound down at about midnight, a group of authors and I drove 15 miles to Jefferson to the one bar that was open until 2 a.m. We stayed till closing time, and a small group of us even danced to a live version of “Cocaine.” Sunday morning was a final brunch. Afterwards, I got the opportunity to drive out to Jefferson to Kathy’s store, Beauty and the Book, the only hair salon/bookstore in the country (Kathy also does hair), which is in a quaint house with a fence and a front yard. There’s a tree dripping with Mardi Gras beads and a bra or two in front, and a long Southern porch with three vintage hairdryers lined up in a row. When you walk inside, into a leopard-covered hallway, plastic vines hang down from the door frame leading into the main shop. The store itself is filled with books (many of them book club selections) and stuffed leopards and Marilyn Monroe prints and a castle-shaped birdcage and a fireplace with a mantle covered in sparkly things. Behind the front table is an elaborate throne. Just past this main room is a beauty parlor that’s just as wild and full of wonders, each wall hanging or trinket attached to a story of its own. I was sad to leave this crazy place and come back to New York. I even have fantasies of moving to Texas myself. I love Kathy’s vision: that women should be glamorous and fabulous and extraordinary, and that books are as much a part of that as elaborate hairdos and rhinestones and best friends.
—Carolyn Turgeon Up next more blogs including a wonderful series of blogs from author, J. Brooks Dann of “Anecdotal”. His book is HOT and so is the author! Well at least that is what the single Pulpwood Queens tell me, being a happily married woman. Besides he did get voted TIMBER GUY OF THE YEAR! Please comment and mark your calendars for Girlfriend Weekend 2008, that is January 18 - 20, 2008 to be specific! Tiara wearing and Book sharing,
Kathy L. Patrick Sometimes some of the best things in your life happen when least expected. Phil Latham, publisher of The Marshall News Messenger emailed me to call him. He wanted to have a meeting with him and Stephanie Atkins of The Longview News Journal (both newspapers are part of the 27 Cox Newspapers across the country and in my neck of the woods). They wanted to talk to me about helping me with my annual Pulpwood Queen Girlfriend Weekend. We had that meeting. I felt as if I had won the literary lottery. The Marshall News Messenger was going to be my official sponsor for my Girlfriend Weekend. We just finished that event and it has taken me a couple weekends for my eyes to uncross and focus. I was suffering from too much literary fun. Yes, reading is fun and we try to make this event as entertaining as it can be with all of our authors, skits, musical artists, and infamous HAIR BALL. We dance like maniacs for literacy with this year’s them being “The Pulpwood Queens Go HOLLYWOOD”! The event is our annual gathering of Pulpwood Queens Book Club members and chapters from around the country, girlfriends, booklovers and more authors than you can shake a stick at, like close to 60 this year. Our theme was The Pulpwood Queens Go Hollywood and did we ever. With The Dallas Morning News and Southern Living and their fabulous reporters and photographers in attendance, I felt just like I truly was walking the red carpet all weekend. Flash bulbs flashing, interviews happening, I thought, so this is what it is like to be a star. In reflection, to say the weekend was a tremendous success would be a total understatement. I have never received so many front page newspapers stories. In fact, I am checking with the Guinness Book of World Records because I think we set a new record high for the most consecutive front page newspaper stories. We did make some news this weekend but one thing that stands out above everything to me. When you partner with someone who is also a literacy leader, you can do far more to promote literacy than crusading by yourself. It is time people for all of us in this country to come together for literacy. There are a kazillion different entities promoting literacy and reading across the country. There are also a bazillion book clubs. I started the first franchised book club and also the conversation within the community that we need to now work together. The Marshall News Messenger was my knight in shining newspaper armor to ride forth and charge full gallop ahead on our literacy mission. The word had reached their Cox Newspaper castle domain, that we were damsels in distress. We were fighting an uphill battle for literacy. This is no fairy tale but it does have a happy ending. Every attendee at the event has raved about how wonderful the event was and are now back home charged to join our book club, start chapters, and take on literacy endeavors. Every author in attendance has let me know just how much they too enjoyed the event and many have been inspired to go on and write features, blogs about the weekend. Several photographers have sent me amazing photos of the event and sent me there links to order photographs. And we not only made the front pages of The Marshall News Messenger but the front page of The Dallas Morning News plus a video link. We had arrived at the kingdom of being discovered. Now for those reading this that don’t have a clue what the Girlfriend Weekend is about? I will in the next several blogs be giving you highlights of the each days events. In the meantime, check out our website, www.beautyandthebook.com as I am posting all the photo links on Home Page, news stories on Hot Stuff and more! I always loved reading those fantabulous fairy tales of my youth. Grimm’s Brothers, Hans Christian Anderson’s were amongst my favorites. They had drama, rags to riches stories where all the fair maidens were rescued from evil forces; the wicked stepmother, the dragon, or witch, or evil spell. Our evil force is illiteracy. Besides living in the 5th poorest county in the state I just found out Marion County has a 39% illiteracy rate. I was in shock. Here I run the largest “meeting and discussing” book club in the world and my home stomping grounds 39% of the population cannot read! This year it is my goal to partner with the Jefferson ISD and our Jefferson Carnegie Library to get a literacy program going in our county. I am signing up to train on how to help to teach someone to read. I live a full and rich life because I am a reader. I cannot imagine a life without reading. That is important to a person as our basic needs of food and shelter. No matter how poor you are, if you are taught to read you have been given the tools to educate yourself and better yourself. I have been able to go to places I never dreamed, walked in other people’s shoes and even found my own faith in God because of reading. Reading is important and to know that I now have a knight by my side to crusade for literacy is a dream come true. Some people have often felt that I had my head in the clouds, I dream to big. There have been many naysayers in my life. But to know that there are others such as Phil Latham and the good folks at The Marshall News Messenger and Cox Newspapers who share my literary vision gives me great hope for a better and more literate tomorrow. God Bless The Marshall News Messenger! So as we gallop off into our literary sunset remember we’ll be back next year with yet another Girlfriend Weekend. Mark your calendars for January 18 - 20, Girlfriend Weekend 2008! Warner Books will debut my first book “The Pulpwood Queens’ Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life”. Our theme will be NEW YORK, NEW YORK and I am already at work on bringing you an all star Broadway inspired cast of authors. Won’t you join us on our sole mission to get the world reading and also on our Girlfriend Weekend which is a celebration of girlfriends, yes, and boyfriends, authors, books and BIG TIME FUN! My next blog will cover the Friday activities of Girlfriend Weekend so stay tuned for that recap and be sure and thank The Marshall News Messenger for helping us on our literacy mission. I have acquired, literally, a Knight in Shining Armor that will be perpetually reading The Marshall News Messenger in my shop, Beauty and the Book, as a tribute to my literacy hero! We as a nation tend to always write to newspapers to complain about something. Won’t you join me in writing this newspaper to tell them that we applaud their efforts on sharing good news and by promoting literacy! Tiara wearing and Book sharing,
Kathy L. Patrick
Founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs
www.beautyandthebook.com
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Carolyn Turgeon’s first novel, Rain Village, was published in November by Unbridled Books. She lives in New York. Here (on the right) she poses with the Pulpwood Queen herself, Kathy Patrick.Literacy Knight in Shining Newspaper Print Armor!
