January 17 -19, 2008, I joined other writers and readers in Jefferson, a small town in the piney woods of East Texas. There, Kathy Patrick, dressed in her trademark hot-pink and leopard print, hosts her annual bash, The Girlfriend Weekend, a celebration of books and big hair. Patrick, an avid reader and a former publisher’s rep, operates Beauty and the Book (www.beautyandthebook.com), a combination bookstore and beauty salon. She is also the founder of the Pulpwood Queens’ Book Clubs (www.pulpwoodqueen.com) and author of THE PULPWOOD QUEEN’S TIARA-WEARING, BOOK-SHARING GUIDE TO LIFE, in which she shares her passions for literacy and living.
The weekend was a loosely organized collection of book talks, panel discussions, and parties, attracting a variety of authors, booklovers, and Pulpwood Queens in sparkling tiaras. This is a festival more for readers to socialize with writers than for aspiring writers to learn about craft. It’s also a chance for the guest authors to leave the keyboard, talk about their books, and connect with book-loving, fun-loving girlfriends—and a few guy friends, too.
When time came for me to present my novel, WOMEN OF MAGDALENE, set in a 19th century ladies’ lunatic asylum in Louisiana, I looked out at an audience of intelligent, curious women, enjoying their community and reveling in their individuality. I thought of the women of my fictional asylum, locked away as many real women were, because they had not conformed to the dictates of the men in charge, the men who held power over the women’s lives—fathers, husbands, doctors, judges, ministers, and politicians. When those men set the standard for what was sane female behavior, they sometimes got it wrong, and asylums could become catchalls for inconvenient women. It was not unusual for 19th century American men to view women’s book clubs with suspicion—all those women gathering without male supervision, reading and exchanging ideas, asserting their own opinions, challenging authority. How marvelous now that book clubs, such as the Pulpwood Queens’ and Timber Guys, continue to flourish, provoking thought, unafraid of being a little outrageous.
Rosemary Poole-Carter, WOMEN OF MAGDALENE, ISBN-13: 978-1-60164-014-7
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