THE PULPWOOD QUEENS

DANCING WITH THE PULPWOOD QUEENS

Just came back from a great weekend with the Pulpwood Queens.  Hundreds of women from reading clubs all across the South and the Midwest descend on Jefferson, Texas once a year to meet authors, wear tiaras, and let their hair down or put it up.  As Kathy Patrick the Queen of Queens says, “The higher the hair, the closer to God.”  Kathy, who owns a bookstore and hair salon, started the Pulpwood Queens to promote literacy and to have some fun.  Kathy’s is a girl who likes a good time and wants those around her to join in.  
She asked me to give the keynote speech to a very enthusiastic sold-out luncheon crowd.  I told them how after a couple of years as a hippy mother in New Orleans, I slung my ten-year-old son over my shoulder and headed out to Los Angeles to break into show business.  Then after over ten years of writing for some of the biggest TV shows in the country I again decided to follow my dream and wrote a novel, which became a national best-seller.  
Timothy Schaffert who wrote The Singing and Dancing Daughters of God was there, along with almost two dozen other authors.  He and I gave a joint reading at Lemuria Books in Jackson Mississippi last fall, so I told everyone, “Tim and I had a thing in Jackson.”  
He responded, “I followed her to Oxford MS.  But it ended badly.”  (He really did follow me.  He had a reading there the next day.)
After a day of books, Kathy puts on a party.  The first night was blue jeans and boots to a great old rock and roll band.  The second night was the big Hair Ball, where everyone was encouraged to wear their wildest.