Kathy L. Patrick, author The Pulpwood Queens' Tiara-Wearing, Book-Sharing Guide to Life, the official book of the Pulpwood Queens—“where tiaras are mandatory and reading good books are the rule!”—celebrates the transformative power of reading and is a resource for book clubs and book lovers everywhere. 

When licensed cosmetologist turned publisher’s rep Kathy L. Patrick lost her job due to industry cutbacks, she wasn’t deterred. Merely months later, she opened Beauty and the Book, the world’s only combination beauty salon/bookstore. An instant hit with customers, who flocked to the store for her dual beauty/book tips, Kathy soon founded The Pulpwood Queens of East Texas. The group meets monthly in official Pulpwood Queens attire—anything that includes hot pink, leopard print, and the obligatory tiara—to eat, drink, and talk books. In THE PULPWOOD QUEENS TIARA WEARING, BOOK-SHARING GUIDE TO LIFE, Kathy shares her life story on how books have changed her life, how she chooses selections for the Pulpwood Queens, and how to start a book group—and keep it going! 

• The Pulpwood Queens have now franchised into 34 chapters nationwide and the numbers are rapidly growing. They have been featured on Good Morning America, The Oprah Winfrey Show and have also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Time®, and Newsweek. The comparable woman-centric The Red Hat Society™ (Warner trade, 4/04) was a #1 New York Times bestseller and has sold close to 365,000 copies to date. 

• Book clubs are hotter than ever, and THE PULPWOOD QUEENS’ TIARA WEARING, BOOK-SHARING GUIDE TO LIFE is ripe with book suggestions, stories, and anecdotes. The Pulpwood Queens’ mission is to promote literacy and reading in America. Visit their Web site at www.beautyandthebook.com. 

 
KATHY L. PATRICK lives just outside historic Jefferson, Texas with her husband, Jay and daughters, Helaina and Madeleine.

Read what authors are saying about the Pulpwood Queen.

What's not to like about a woman who loves books, likes to do hair, and opens a salon/bookstore called Beauty and the Book? The Pulpwood Queens Tiara-Wearing, Book-Sharing Guide to Life is really funny, and it's really wise."

            --James Patterson, author of Step on a Crack

  "This is a rollicking, heartwarming and ultimately inspiring book by a Pulpwood Queen who proudly proclaims a passion for literature, tiaras, peanut butter-fudge cake and Elvis.  This world would be a better place if we all approached life with such gusto.  Kathy L. Patrick is just the tonic we need today." 

--Daniel A. Olivas, author of Devil Talk

"Wonderfully flamboyant, big hearted and passionate about literacy, Kathy Patrick is the Dolly Parton of the book world. Her life reads like a country music song and like the acclaimed singer/songwriter, Kathy knows the secret to living life to the fullest. Take the time to read this humorous and poignant book by the woman whose fun-loving spirit ignited the largest book club in the world."
            --Michael Morris, author of Slow Way Home and A Place Called Wiregrass

"No one can resist Kathy Patrick's enthusiasm for life, love and good books. There's bound to be a tiara shortage after book lovers meet Kathy. With The Pulpwood Queens' Tiara-Wearing, Book-Sharing Guide to Life, she has given readers the perfect guide to good books."

            --Deborah Smith, author of The Crossroads Café

"With a heart that's even bigger than her "go-to-town" hair and a story that will make you laugh until you cry, Kathy Patrick reminds us we're never to old to achieve a dream-or play dress up.  She's the real deal!"

            --Prill Boyle, author of Defying Gravity: A Celebration of Late-Blooming Women 

"I loved reading this book as much as I've loved getting to know Kathy.  She is a genuine force of nature and your life will be richer once you've read her words."
             --Adrienne Barbeau, actress and best selling author There Are Worse Things I Could Do

"Kathy Patrick is an American original – a renegade housewife, mother, beautician and bibliophile, who has made books as much a part of her life as hair curlers and car pools.  She devours fresh novels and their writers like a newly awakened bear and brings them to the public’s attention with the same ferocity.  Now in her first effort,  The Pulpwood Queen's Tiara-Wearing, Book-Bearing Guide to Life,  she demonstrates a voice as unique and memorable as many of those she has championed."

            --Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, television writer, screenwriter, and author of Liberating Paris

“Kathy Patrick is a natural born storyteller and the best friend a writer and reader could have.”

            --Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides and Beach Music

”Reading THE PULPWOOD QUEEN'S TIARA WEARING BOOK SHARING GUIDE TO LIFE is like sitting down with a best girlfriend who loves books but also loves telling a good yarn.  This is a book you'll want to share."
            --Cassandra King, author of Queen of Hearts

“Slide into a '57 pink Cadillac for a ride through the land and the heart of the original Pulpwood Queen--an unforgettable journey brimming with nostalgia, inspiration and common sense.”

            --Diane Fanning, author of Written in Blood and Under the Knife

“Kathy Patrick proves the point of a speaker I heard once who said she was depressed living in Hereford, Texas, out there with the cows, and rather than deny the depression, she just gave into it--lock, stock, and barrel. Sometimes, you've got to crawl up in bed, submerge yourself in Russell Stover chocolates, and then say, "To hell with this, let's move on." Kathy aptly proves her point: let's make margaritas from life's lemons ( or in Kathy's case a mean Lemon Bang Punch with champagne as a key ingredient) and prove to the world, but mostly to yourself that you are a "survivor." This is just what she did with the founding of the Pulpwood Queens or, as the Dalai Lama would agree, she lost, but she certainly did not lose the lesson with the Pulpwood Queens and this wonderful book, which also shows us all that she IS, indeed, an author.”

         --Dr. Donna Walker Nixon, Founder of Langdon Review and The Langdon Review Literary Festival

“A funny and inspirational account of how beauty and literature found each other.  Any woman who thinks she can win a tree-cutting contest because she knows how to cut hair is someone you need to get to know."

         -- Kathy Hepinstall, author of The Prince of Lost Places

As our Tiara-Wearing, Book-Bearing Pulpwood Queen, Kathy Patrick, points out in her dynamic first novel, “The world is made up of books, not atoms.”  As a charter member of this fun group of ladies and gents, let me assure you this book will keep you in stitches--enthralled from the first to the last hilarious page.  It also has its poignant areas where you will marvel at the audacity of this woman to keep making lemonade when life deals her lemons! 

Kathy has a following of fans everywhere she ventures—she is smart, pretty, and absolutely unique.  With all her hectic lifestyle, she balances her role of wife and mother like the pro that she is—with an insatiable zest for living.

Run, don’t walk, to the nearest bookstore and pick up your copy today.

            --Marlyn Monette, author of So Good…Make You Slap Your Mama! Cookbook – Volumes I and II.

(Official Pulpwood Queens Cookbook – until Kathy publishes one of her own)   

"Writers never had a better friend that booklover extraordinaire, Kathy Patrick.  And now readers can get in on the good times because the irrepressible, effervescent Miz Kat is just as much fun on the page as she is in person!  Her "Book Sharing Guide to Life" is the touching story of Kathy's passionate love affair with books as it transforms her from a shy, barely-reading fourth-grader into the queen of all book queens.  Along the way, her tale is sure rekindle your own romance with all the important books that changed your life and make you remember why you love reading even as it infects you with a strange desire to wear hot pink and leopard print!"

             --Sarah Bird author of The Flamenco Academy

Catching up on your reading at the beauty salon, your head stuck beneath the hairdryer, your ears filled with the whoosh of the rushing hot air, is a near-ancient tradition in some parts; Kathy Patrick had the savvy to plop a tiara on top of your freshly bent curls, pull you into a group, and get you to talking about the book you’re reading. Her efforts have been a blessing for authors, publishers, and readers alike, and the piss-and-vinegar that she brings to her mission as a literary activist is fully evident in her good-spirited, straight-forward, sprightly Guide to Life. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll take her advice. And get a haircut while you’re at it.

             --Timothy Schaffert author of Devils in the Sugar Shop

As unstoppable as a force of nature, as optimistic as sunshine, as warm as a cat curled up by the fireplace, Kathy Patrick has written one Beauty of a Book!

             --W. Bruce Cameron author of How to Remodel a Man!

“This book made me laugh out loud and then cry with recognition about how it feels to be an outsider who triumphs over the odds.  I’m proud that I count the heartful, funny, sexy smart woman who wrote it as my friend.  Kathy Patrick is the real thing, and she will get America reading if she has to go door to door to do it.  After you read this you’ll want to be a Pulpwood Queen too!”

           --Iris Rainer Dart author of Beaches and Some Kind of Wonderful

“You'll, laugh, you'll cry, then laugh again until you cry! Isn't that why we read books? Kathy Patrick has a mahvelous voice you're sure to enjoy from first page 'til last, and oh the remembrances she conjures up! A must read.”

             --Caryl McAdoo, Award-winning author of 8 books for children THE ADVENTURES OF SERGEANT SOCKS, for grownups THE PRICE PAID

"When Kathy L. Patrick takes to the literary pulpit, people listen -- sometimes they do the watoosie -- books are read and lives are changed for the better. The Pulpwood Queens Tiara-Wearing, Book- Sharing Guide to Life is an inspiring personal story as well as a practical guide to finding and sharing great books. The Pulpwood Queens are a new American royalty. They are a spreading phenomenon because they celebrate the richness of literature, friendship, family, and community. This wonderful book will have a long life. It will have many lives. It will have offspring and you may be one of them. Because according to Patrick, we are all kings and queens. In her joyful world view, there is hope for readers, writers, and imaginations everywhere." 

--Margaret Sartor, author of Miss American Pie: A Diary of Love, Secrets, and Growing Up in the 1970s

“Kathy Patrick is the patron saint of writers and readers.  Although I personally have never donned a tiara, I have shared books from an early age and can attest that The Pulpwood Queens Tiara-wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life is an authentic American story, as generous, exuberant and irresistible as it's author.  Her love of words is self-evident and contagious.  Kathy Patrick, one of this country's great natural resources, is as expansive as the Heartland prairie that spawned her, full of stories and folk wisdom like Will Rogers, socially conscious and unpretentiously lyrical like Woody Guthrie and sharp-eyed and sharp-tongued as Annie Oakley.  Her moving chronicle of the way books saved her life and can save yours is as spicy, satisfying and ribsticking as Texas barbecue and chili, with a damn sight fewer calories.  Her literary beauty shop is already a national shrine, like the Alamo, but with lots more style, ambience and feng shui.  And nobody had to die to get it that way.  If Kathy Patrick didn't exist, we writers would have to invent her.”
            -- Doug Marlette,  author of The Bridge and Magic Time

Kathy Patrick’s exuberant, can-do spirit shines through every page of this inspirational, heartfelt memoir. It’s got books, food, tiaras, homespun advice and leopardskin. What more could a gal want? 

-          Denise Hamilton, bestselling author of Prisoner of Memory and editor of the Los Angeles Noir anthology.

“Kathy Patrick writes like your best girlfriend sharing her secrets to good hair and good reads.  This warm, wise book will make you laugh and cry and long to be talking books with Kathy and the hundreds of amazing women who proudly call themselves Pulpwood Queens.”
         --Lisa Tucker, author of Once Upon A Day

A fun-loving, big-hearted book by a woman who's dedicated herself to my two favorite things— reading and pleasure. Thank you, Kathy.

            --Alison Clement, author of Pretty Is As Pretty Does and Twenty Questions

"This is a comforting, unpretentious, unapologetic, and unlikely story about books and the people who love them. It reminds us that characters from the old classics are not dead yet, that contemporary authors aren't merely whispering to the wind, and that books--the very best of them, on occasion, when they find their way into the right hands-- can manage not only to create a society of their characters, but a society of their readers."
            --Elizabeth Crook, author of The Night Journal

The Pulpwood Queens is a riotously funny portrait of southern womanhood, which is to say it's about hair, leopard-print tights, fake furs, book clubs, family crises, and food.  Mainly, though, it's hilarious, warm and insightful.  I loved it.

     --John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and The City of Fallen Angels

"The only thing better than being an author who has signed books from Kathy Patrick's hair dryer throne chair at Beauty and the Book in Jefferson, Texas, a beautyshop and bookstore, is getting the opportunity to revisit Kathy's infectious, optimistic, and unique way of seeing the world through her new The Pulpwood Queens' Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life. Philosophy, advice, recipes, reading recommendations, she covers it all."

          --Lalita Tademy, author of Cane River and Red River

"Okay, I'm a guy. I don't wear a tiara or leopard print clothes. So what? I
still dig this book. Kathy and the Pulpwood Queens prove reading is not only
fun fun FUN... but vital to living. They rock!" 

---Christopher Cook, author of "Robbers" and "Screen Door Jesus & Other
Stories"