The adventures and musings of Kathy L. Patrick, the Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Founder of the Pulpwood Queens, the largest "meeting and discussing" book club in the world. Check daily for more info on Authors, Books, Music, Movies, Book Tour and the promotion of literacy!
If you all do not know of Marshall Chapman, let me introduce you to an amazing artist. She told me the other day on the phone that New York Times Bestselling, Pat Conroy wanted her to sing at his funeral. Wow, how cool is that? I want Marshall to sing and NOT at my funeral yet, hahhahahha! And indeed she will, at our 11th Anniversary Girlfriend Weekend. Friday night after our Pulpwood Queen and Author Talent Show, she will be our HEADLINING ACT!
She's not only a singer, songwriter, now actress, (portraying Gwyneth's Paltrow's agent in her NEW film with Tim McGraw), she is an author too! "Goodbye Little Rock and Roller" was her first book which had me when she described waking up after a big party at her house, lying face down with only her panties on between the rows of peas and corn. Talk about a pageturner and truly a music insider from the female perspective. You have to read it!
Now she has another New book, "They Came to Nashville" which promises to be another incredible read. But first, she has a NEW CD, BIG LONESOME! To order and I promise you, you will want to pre-order this CD, go to by clicking http://www.tallgirl.com/preorder_new_cd
I am now trying like mad to get this interview Marshall did on The Bob Edwards Show where she sang the song that she and Kathi Kamen Goldmark wrote for me after attending Girlfriend Weekend some time back up on this blogsite, stay tuned. Her voice is the female Morgan Freeman and I would hire her to do the voice for anything as she is absolutely an American original. So stay tuned while I work on that and for more on Marshall, go to her website at http://www.tallgirl.com/. It's a treasure trove as you will not believe all the songs she has written, the musical artists she has worked with, and the roads she has traveled. I can hardly wait until she gets here!
P.S. The last thing I would like to share is because I am a reader, I get to meet the coolest people ever and do the most amazing things. Singing with Marshall Chapman has been one of the highlights of my life and right up there when I got to sing with Smokey Robinson. Now tell me how many small town Kansas born and raised girls get to do that kind of thing? And all of this has happened only because I was born be a reader! Hmm, sounds like the title of a song, don't you think!
It's Sunday morning and I am sitting here in my living room recapping last night's EAT PRAY LOVE Birthday Party with my dad who is down visiting me from my hometown of Eureka, Kansas.
We're drinking coffee, a nice Sunday morning. Good friends, great food, amazingly funny stories last night, and that's what a birthday is suppose to be, time spent with your family and friends. We shared our stories, our lives as each took a turn telling something about themselves that we did not know. I laughed my head off at most of the stories, just all us kidding around and having fun.
So if this is any indication of my life this 54th year, I am highly looking for to the year ahead. Thanks to all my friends who graced my doors this past Saturday evening. My friends who all went beyond the call dressing up, bringing their dishes, their presence and their presents, which I told them was not necessary but they did anyway. Judging from all the scented gifts, I am going to have to get the hint and start bathing more, hahahhaha! Seriously, everybody, thank you. Thank you for being my friend.
For all the hundreds and hundreds of people that email me birthday greetings, I was truly humbled and amazed by the outpouring of big love. I have to thank Facebook as I have never had this kind of love happen on such a scale before, the power of the internet.
Thanks too for the friends who sent me cards and gifts. In this day and age of technology, the handwritten note is even more appreciated. Thank you.
Heading to church in a few minutes so continuing this year's theme of EAT PRAY LOVE! As I told my Daddy a few minutes ago, if we could all do those three things, life would be so much better and less complicated for all of us!
And for me, it's all about the story. Sharing each other's lives whether in conversation like last night or all sharing in the discussion of another great read. I can hardly wait for this fall with all our book and author events. Follow along here at http://www.pulpwoodqueen.com/ or on my Event page of my official website at http://www.beautyandthebook.com/. And then if you really want to hear some great stories, check out the NEW venture I am doing hosting this weblog, http://www.southernauthors.blogspot.com/. A different southern author is featured nearly everyday and have they got some amazing stories.
Thank you again everybody for making me one truly blessed and happy 54 year old wife, momma, hairdressing, bookselling, literacy promoting, youth group leading woman from my NOW hometown of Jefferson, Texas!
EAT PRAY LOVE,
Kathy L. Patrick
Founder of the Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Clubs
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.
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.
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 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.
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 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/, this blog site. And do check out daily the NEW blog site I am hosting at 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 shop, Beauty and the Book, please fan me!
And now to truly celebrate my birthday, this video, which in my opinion is the #1 Party Band EVER, The B-52's singing, "LOVE SHACK!"
I love this photo. It's of the Burke girls, mom in the middle, that's Jean. Shirley on the left and Michelle on the right. Check out the 80's do's and that duran duran t-shirt!
Jean used to be the secretary for my church, The First Christian and Congregational Church back home in Eureka, Kansas where I was born and raised. Howard, that's the daddy, and the girls lived right next door to the church.
I really began to know this family when I started teaching Shirley's Sunday School Class when she and the other kids were in the 3rd grade! Michelle sat in, though older, she just preferred to be in my class with her sister.
The next year Reverend Daniel moved me up to the 4th grade Sunday School class so I had the same kids. Then a pattern developed where I just kept moving up with the same kids each year. These kids became my family and now here we are still friends today. Shirley and Michelle are both married, have children of their own, but those bonds we made back then could never be broken through distance. We keep in touch, all of us on Facebook! That's Jean's New Facebook profile pic!
Many people know me as Kathy, the crazy hairdressing bookseller. These girls know me as Kathy, the crazy rollerskating hairdresser. Not much has changed since those days back in Eureka except for me the extra poundage and now having a shop where I not only do hair, I sell books and run this incredibly large book club, 326 chapters to be exact. But the bonds that are created when you devote your life to children will carry you through a lifetime.
As we are now into the first week of Back-to-School madness, perhaps you too will think about perhaps doing something for the youth of your area. I have come full circle as now on the second year of yet again being the Senior High Youth Director for my church here in historic Jefferson, The First United Methodist Church. We have some big plans this fall with our big Books Alive, youth building fundraiser. See Event Page on Books Alive at http://www.beautyandthebook.com/. I never had a big plan when I was the youth leader back home at my church. I somehow just ambled into that position. They say God has a plan for you, he's not a kidding. I have realized that all my life, children have been a big part of what I do. From being the Youth Leader back home at church, to going on to having children of my own while being the Children's Manager/Buyer for an independent bookstore here in Texas, being a Girl Scout Leader in my girl's formative years, to helping initiate the Dolly Parton Imagination Library Project when I was President of the Rotary Club of Jefferson, to now back to being a Youth Leader for my church.
This fall, make a difference. Invest in children. My girls go "Mom, that's so sappy" when I go, "Children are our future". But you know what, it doesn't really matter to me what people think about me, but it does matter what people do to children. They are our most precious gift and it's time we all really invest our time in these kids.
So here's to the Burke girls, young women who are now too making a difference in their children and other children's lives, one a minister's wife, the other a teacher. So it's back to school and back to work on this reading road to promoting literacy and yes, inspiring and encouraging children through our faith and good works!
Have a terrific school year everybody and know that we can all be on the same page when it comes to doing good work in books and with children!
Tiara wearing, Beauty and the Book sharing,
Kathy L. Patrick
FUMC Senior High Youth Leader
Founder of the Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Clubs
