On a dark, deserted, country road in the piney woods of East Texas, the white SUV stopped. The driver, NYT Bestselling, Pulitzer winning journalist and author, Bill Dedman, dressed as Dr. Seuss, turned to me with worried eyes.

Edgar Allan Poe, in the passenger seat with a raven perched on his shoulder looked from Dr. Seuss to me. “I think we’re lost,” Poe said, in a voice that sounded a lot like NYT bestselling author, Karen Abbott.

In the back seat, wearing a saree and bejeweled in gold from India, I pressed my hand to my chest. Would we ever make it to the Big Hair Ball? The Dreamworks Entertainment movie crew would already be there. Should I have set aside my tiara, leopard print leggings, feather boa, and pink shirt and left the city limits of Nacodoches with these two characters…?

Reality or Truth?

100% true! Really!

You never know what’s going to happen at the annual author/reader event, the Pulpwood Queen Book Club Girlfriends Weekend. 

Finally we made it to the Big Hair Ball. (Yes, in a barn in the country in East Texas). Bill Dedman as Dr. Seuss met up with Thing One and Thing Two (bestselling authors Lisa Wingate and Shellie Rushing Tomlinson).

Me, dressed in my saree

Authors Jamie Ford, Poe – and outlaw sisters – Becky Hepinstall Hilliker and Kathy Hepinstall Parks and Karen Abbott, and Carla Stewart

What a weekend! Can’t believe I was hobnobbing in East Texas with these amazing authors and readers and interviewed on an author panel by co-host Jamie Ford! Yes, Jamie Ford, NYT Bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet and Songs of the Willow Frost. His kind, friendly nature settled my nerves after stepping on stage after pulitzer prize winner, Bill Dedman. (Yes, my story was true as I later I rode to the party with him.)

Kathy Murphy, founder of Beauty and the Book (beauty salon/bookstore) began Pulpwood Queens Book Club in East Texas and now there are more than 600 affiliated book clubs all over the world. Dreamwork’s Entertainment is making a movie of Kathy Murphy’s life story. It’s true. They were filming during the event!

Kathy Murphy personally reads and chooses the book of the month and bonus books for her club. She read my book, Crooked Lines, and nominated it a bonus book of the month! Then, I was invited to 2015 Girlfriends Weekend in Nacogdoches, Texas. What an honor! What fun! More pictures from the  2015 #pqgirlfriendweekend.

Returning to Kansas City, I decided to begin a Pulpwood Queen Bookclub chapter. If you’re in the Kansas City area and want to join me, don your tiara, put on your pink boa and leopard print and lets have some fun! I guarantee it will be a blast! What I could only imagine in my dreams became a reality in East Texas, thanks to Kathy Murphy. I’m so honored that she believed in my novel, Crooked Lines.