Tornado! by Kathryn Casey

Published by Brother Mockingbird and edited by Pulpwood Queen Author, Susan Cushman, this collection of essays by authors, book club members, and supporters of the Pulpwood Queens is a love letter to the founder and CEO, Kathy L. Murphy. An ode to the written word and the place that literature and reading play in all of our lives.

Thank you Brother Mockingbird Publishing for letting us share some stories!

Tornado! by Kathryn Casey

It’s the 2010 Girlfriend Weekend. I stand at the entrance to the Great Big Ball of Hair Ball and watch the Pulpwood Queens and authors arrive. The party’s theme is The Wizard of Oz, and the room fills with blue-andwhite gingham-clad Dorothys, raggedy scare crows, complete character sets with thick-maned lions and clanking tin men. A Glinda strolls by. Then Ad Hudler, one of my fellow authors, shuffles in with his head encased in a green cardboard box. A curtain covers the front. He pulls a cord and it opens. Ad’s face painted emerald green, he’s OZ, the great and powerful. A maniacal look in his eyes, Ad says with a whiff of pomposity, “Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don’t you think?”

A Wicked Witch laughs so hard tears spill down her cheeks ruining her thick black eyeliner.

I’m an Oz aficionado. A display case in my office overflows with Wizard mementos, including a sign warning people that I have flying monkeys. I don’t see how the Hair Ball can get any better.

Then Kathy L. Murphy walks in the room.

Her long blond hair hidden beneath a knit cap that erupts into a spray of ominous black netting, the PQ’s matriarch wears a tented grey dress. Her eyelids painted dark, at her neck a Guernsey cow appears caught in a strong wind, a tractor on a chain dangles helplessly, and the pin on her chest reads: “I’d rather be in Oz.” The Pulpwood Queen has come to the ball as the tornado. It’s hard to imagine a higher-energy group. The enthusiasm at a Hair Ball flows like champagne spilling over a thousand champagne glasses stacked in tiers. The music pounds, the PQs toss off worries, dance and enjoy the night. One such evening, I was in a line of five authors who mimicked the Supremes dancing to Baby Love. Another year, I dressed as the Cheshire Cat and joined in on a pantomime routine while Jefferson

Airplane’s White Rabbit bellowed through the room.

Still, as important as laughter and good times are—the older I get the more vital I consider both—another aspect of my Pulpwood Queen adventure is even more satisfying: the camaraderie of readers and authors, the leisurely unstructured time to kick back and talk to folks who love books as much as I do.

At Girlfriend Weekend, I listen to readers, who tell me what they look for in a book. They explain why they enjoyed one book, while they never finished another. We share stories about our families, our lives, our pasts and our presents, our wishes and our dreams. It’s a rare opportunity to connect with others on a very personal level.

As a profession, author has a rather lofty image. When I tell folks I’ve written sixteen books, they see it as a glamorous life, picturing book signings and lectures.

That happens, off and on. But the bulk of my existence is spent alone in my office, tethered to my computer, sitting in my worn desk chair. I’ve used my keyboard so much that some of the keys are blank, the letters worn off.

Writing is a lonely life. Many of us write in our pajamas in the morning and eat leftovers for lunch, at times while trying to figure out how our characters finagled us into a dead end. That’s a problem when we’re only a third of the way into a book. It’s enough to birth a migraine.

So we writers suffer in solitude, stewing over the unfortunate turns our writing takes.

At least, that’s the way my life used to be. Before Kathy and the PQ family adopted me.

The Pulpwood Queens have become my secret support system. I’ve talked over plot twists with members. Some have done first reads on my books, given me feedback on whether or not the plots are coming together. These women from across America who wear tiaras and boas, cowboy hats with bedazzled bands, have been generous with their time and honest in their opinions, valuable gifts for any writer.