Southwest Louisiana Pulpwood Queens Book Club: Girlfriends Weekend Pulpwood Queens Style

Pulpwood Queens are about reading and friendship, about encouraging others to be involved in life, about communication through the written word. And it's about having passion and enjoyment for bringing words to life. That's what happened at the 10th Anniversary celebration of the Pulpwood Queens Girlfriends Weekend in Jefferson Texas.

The Wizard of Oz walked out of the pages and assumed new interpreations....there were the Pink Cowardly Lion, Pink Dorothy, Pink Tin Man, Pink Scarecrow and other pinkly supporting roles for Glinda and Oz. Dorothy's were there with ruby slippers. The poppies were blooming, the Blue Bird were flying over rainbows and of course Queen Kathy Patrick came in as a Tornado with author Ad Hudler as OZ. What delight to see characters spring to life and have fun...great fun dancing and laughing and enjoying being more than words on a page.

How many high points can one weekend have? With Kathy leading the charge you have renown author Pat Conroy of South of Broad The Great Santini and The Prince of Tides, charming us with stories of his life and how he became a writer as well as a bit about being a Paw Paw with his daughter Melissa Conroy who wrote Poppy's Pants. An enchanting story that my granddaughters loved.

There was Jamie Ford of The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet who told of his love of Love Stories and being a hopeless romantic. After reading Hotel, I can understand that! I loved the story and loved talking with Jamie about the book when he did an author call-in....prior to hitting the best seller list!!

How about when I ran into Elizabeth Berg of Home Safe at the historic Excelsior Hotel when we had our morning coffee and ended up riding together to the convention center. A charming lady who told us about the meaning of home, that place where your heart rests. We all enjoyed her book and appreciated her author cal call-in!!

Our special Linda Busby Parker of Seven Laurels was there with her Christmas anthologies. Our member Hillene Deaton sent one of her special quilts via Beverly Martin to present to her. What a gracious lady she is and has written about it on her blog.

I joined the Head Queens to read passage from our favorite books this year, remember it was unanimous to choose kathryn Casey's Blood Lines, I hope others were intrigued and ready to read it. It was great to see Kathryn again, feel like she's one of us!

So who else was there....my goodness authors everywhere, and I cam home with books by Deva Gnatt, Suzanne Arruda, Sam Barry, Kathleen Kaska, Ad Hudler, ML Malcolm, Robert LeLeux, Nicole Seitz new friends and authors

As well as enjoying the hijinks of River Jordan and Shellie Tomlinson, can you imagine the two of them on tour together!!

Great time by all and we''ve already made reservations for next year!

Thank you Kathy for all you do and she sent us a list of all the author websites, check them out!

2010 Girlfriend Weekend Authors website links:

Ad Hudler – www.adhudler.com

Jill S. Alexander – www.jillsalexander.com

Nicole Seitz – www.nicoleseitz.com

Mary Kay Andrews – www.marykayandrews.com

Heather Hepler – www.heatherhepler.com

Robin Hemley – www.robinhemley.com

Judy Christie – www.judychristie.com

Tracy Lea Carnes – www.traceyleacarnes.blogspot.com

Kathleen Kaska – www.kathleenkaska.com

Patti Callahan Henry – www.patticallahanhenry.com

Lauretta Hannon – www.thecrackerqueen.com