The current and past issues of The Queen's Proclamation, Pat Ballard's monthy newsletter, are available online in the Pearlsong Press newsletter archives.
Read the current issue here.
Check out past issues in the newsletter archives, here.
Pat Ballard, Peggy Elam, and Bunkie Lynn staffed the Pearlsong Press booth at the Southern Festival of Books Oct. 10-12, 2008. Anne Richardson Williams assisted in the booth on Friday afternoon while the trio were presenting "Tell Me Why I Should Love My Body" on the Festival schedule. (To listen to and/or download mp3 recordings of their presentation, click here.)
The Festival was held at Legislative Plaza in downtown Nashville. The weekend was sunny and warm -- hot enough that the group stashed the booth's freebie chocolate in a basket instead of including it in their giveaway "swag bags" (which contained flyers, postcards, bookmarks, and a "Queen of Rubenesque Romances" pen).
Here's Bunkie & Pat in the booth...
.....Peggy & Pat.....
...and a closeup of the booth displays.
Charlie Lovett, author of The Program, also stopped by the booth after his Saturday morning reading & discussion at the Festival. (Click here to listen to/download an mp3 recording of his portion of the "Paths to Perfection" session on the Festival's schedule.)
Pearlsong Press publisher Peggy Elam, Ph.D., 10 Steps to Loving Your Body (No Matter What Your Size) author Pat Ballard and Bunkie Lynn, author of The Big Girls' Guide to Life, gave a body-positive presentation at the Southern Festival of Books last Friday.
(That's Elam on the right, Lynn on the left and Ballard in the middle in their publicity photo for the Festival. They're wearing T-shirts from the Love Your Body Project website.)
The Oct. 10, 2008 "Tell Me Why I Should Love My Body" session was led off by humorist Lynn, followed by psychologist Elam and the Queen of Rubenesque Romances, Ballard. Listen to and/or download mp3 recordings of the trio's presentation below. (Click on the links to listen online, or right click on the links and "save as" to download.)
Bunkie Lynn's intro
Peggy Elam's talk
Pat Ballard's talk
Closing chat with attendees
The trio staffed the Pearlsong Press booth at the Festival all weekend, handing out chocolate and "swag bags" and selling books, prints, and beaded bookmarks. (Click here for a blog post with photos of the Festival & booth.)
Lynn, Ballard & Elam have also started a body-positive "Love Your Body Blog."
Hendersonville,TN humorist/author Bunkie Lynn, Nashville, TN author Pat
Ballard & I are presenting "Tell Me Why I Should Love My Body" at
3:30 p.m. Friday, Oct.10 in Room 29 of Legislative Plaza during the
Southern Festival of Books in downtown Nashville. We are also sharing a booth at the Festival
under the Pearlsong Press banner.
There is no charge for admission to the Festival or any of its events. See http://www.tn-humanities.org/
Lynn is the author of The Big Girls' Guide to Life: A Plus-Sized Jaunt Through a Body-Obsessed World
Ballard is a romance novelist whose books feature Big Beautiful
Heroines (or, as I like to put it, where the fat chick gets the guy).
Pearlsong Press recently published her first nonfiction book, 10 Steps to Loving Your Body (No Matter What Size You Are)
Lynn will start the presentation with humor, then I will address the "why" of loving one's body and Ballard will discuss the "how." Lynn & Ballard will be available to sign books after the talk, as well as at our booth during the Festival weekend. Their books will be available for sale at the Festival's bookstore/book tables as well as at our booth. I'll also be selling all of Ballard's other books and the rest of the Pearlsong Press catalog at our booth. Lynn, Ballard & I are also establishing a body-positive blog at www.loveyourbodyblog.com. For more info about Pearlsong Press books, see www.pearlsong.com.
Just to have some of my own writing to sell (since I've been so busy publishing other people's books I haven't been working on my own :-), I will have a few limited-edition illustrated letterpress prints of my poem "Sacred Space" to sell at the booth. The prints were published by Middle Tennessee State University's Tulip Poplar Press. The poem also ran in Psychobits, the newsletter of the Nashville Psychotherapy Institute, a couple of years ago.
Also...another Pearlsong Press author, Charlie Lovett of Winston-Salem,
NC, is appearing at the Festival at 9 a.m. Saturday morning (Room 31)
in a panel entitled "Better or Deader? Thrillers About Paths to
Perfection." Lovett's novel The Program
So....feel free to share this post with colleagues, clients, friends
& family who might enjoy, appreciate or just plain benefit from
size- and body-acceptance oriented offerings at the Southern Festival
of Books in Nashville next weekend. And come visit us at booth #20 on Legislative Plaza! During
our Friday afternoon presentation, the Pearlsong Press booth will be
staffed by Nashville author Anne Richardson Williams, author of the
memoir Unconventional Means: The Dream Down Under
The September 2008 issue of The Queen's Proclamation, the newsletter of Pat Ballard, the Queen of Rubenesque Romances, is out.
Read it here.
Read past issues of the newsletter in the Pearlsong Press newsletter archives.
Enjoy!
Autographed copies of Pat Ballard's newest book, 10 Steps to Loving Your Body (No Matter What Size You Are) are available for purchase now at Shimai Pottery & Gifts in Nashville, TN.
Shimai is one of the shops at the Loveless Motel & Cafe on Highway 100 in Nashville, TN, at the northern terminus of the Natchez Trace Parkway.
Loveless Cafe is nationally known for its country ham and red-eye gravy, Southern-fried chicken, made-from-scratch biscuits and homemade preserves. Several years ago new owners turned the buildings formerly housing the historic motel's 14 rooms into charming privately owned shops. While waiting for a table at the popular cafe, visitors can roam the shops with cafe pager in hand.
And now, Loveless visitors can LoveMORE (their bodies, that is) via 10 Steps to Loving Your Body (No Matter What Size You Are).
Rachel at The-F-Word.org (Food. Fat. Feminism.) has posted a great interview with Pat Ballard, the Queen of Rubenesque Romances, in relation to the publication of Pat's new book 10 Steps to Loving Your Body (No Matter What Size You Are).
Read the interview here.
Pat Ballard's first nonfiction book, 10 Steps to Loving Your Body (No Matter What Size You Are), is now available from Pearlsong Press.
As a young woman Ballard almost died trying to starve her body into a societally approved size. In 10 Steps to Loving Your Body (No Matter What Size You Are) she shares the steps she created -- and took -- to heal the damage of years of dieting.
Join her in celebrating size diversity, self esteem, positive body image, and health at every size.
"I have been a fan of Pat Ballard's writing, and her vision, for years. If you haven't learned to cherish your life's vehicle -- your body -- this beautiful little book will make a big beautiful difference. If you already know what is truly important, this book will re-arm you for the sometimes daunting task of living fully at any size.""
Janey Milstead
Writer/Editor & past Editor-in-Chief of BBW magazine
Ballard, known as the Queen of Rubenesque Romances, is the author of seven works of romantic fiction featuring big beautiful (plus size) heroines. 10 Steps to Loving Your Body (No Matter What Size You Are) is her eighth book.
Pat Ballard, the Queen of Rubenesque Romances, guested on the Health At Every Size Radio show with Dr. Peggy Elam this morning. She spoke about her fall 2008 experiences with gallbladder surgery, and how people of size can help ensure they receive good medical care.
Listen to and/or download the mp3 recording of the show here. (Right click on the link and "save as" to download.)
Pat Ballard has an article in the February 2008 issue of The Nashville Edition, the newsletter of the Nashville, TN chapter of the Women's National Book Association.
A sample:
For some of us, reality sets in and we find ourselves putting our dreams on the back burners of life in order to...well, to live. Raising our children, working at jobs we may or may not like, paying for the house, the car, college for the kids, and whatever else may show up at any given time.
But if those dreams have refused to go away, if they keep nagging at us, then maybe we need to take them out and re-examine them.
It has been my experience that ignored dreams turn into ignored needs. These disregarded needs, no matter how vague, can turn into unhappiness, discontentment, and an unfulfilled emptiness. They can lead to different levels of volatile unrest until a person can be miserable in the life they're leading because they're not furnishing an outlet for those needs.
You can access a PDF of the newsletter here. Scroll to page 7 for Ballard's article.
Pat Ballard: 10 Steps to Loving Your Body (No Matter What Size You Are)
The Queen of Rubenesque Romances shares the steps she created -- and used -- to heal the damage of years of dieting. Join her in celebrating size diversity, self esteem, positive body image, and health at every size.
Charlie Lovett: The Program
A new weight loss clinic in New York City has an offer for you -- given them $5,000 and they'll make you as thin as a supermodel. You can eat whatever you want and never gain an ounce. Tempted? Fledgling journalist Karen Sumner would be -- if only she had $5,000. When Karen finally walks through the blue and gold doors of The Program, however, she's on the trail of the hottest story of her career. If she and her friends are right, The Program is doing something even worse than creating an army of unnaturally thin women. Library Journal calls The Program "a lively first novel. Highly recommended."
Linda C Wisniewski: Off Kilter: A Woman's Journey to Peace with Scoliosis, Her Mother, and Her Polish Heritage
Even before she was diagnosed with scoliosis at 13, Linda Wisniewski felt off kilter. Born to a cruel father in the insulated Polish Catholic community of Amsterdam, New York, she learned martyrdom as a way of life. Off Kilter shows her learning to stretch her Self as well as her spine as she comes to terms with her mentally deteriorating, widowed mother and her culture. Only by accepting her physical deformity, her emotionally unavailable mother, and her Polish American heritage does she finally find balance and a life that fits. Maureen Murdock, author of Unreliable Truth: On Memoir & Memory, calls Off Kilter "a courageous, insightful book, particularly relevant for anyone who grew up feeling physically 'different.'"
Pat, Ballard: The Best Man
Sparks fly the night Lana Clarke meets to plan her sister's wedding -- and not just because curvaceous Lana announces she's stopped dieting and doesn't care if she's fat as maid of honor. The strong-willed sister of the bride attracts the attention of the groom's devastatingly handsome best man, Anthony Angelino. But when the sparks become flames, Lana's in trouble. Tony's first wife died mysteriously. Will Lana be next?
Judy Bagshaw: At Long Last, Love
Big beautiful --and in some cases slightly more mature -- heroines grace the pages of this collection of romantic short stories by Judy Bagshaw.
Jack Adler: Splendid Seniors
An inspiring ensemble of 52 people whose accomplishments after age 65 remind us that creativity, passion & influence can not only flower in later years, but bear delicious fruit.
Mary Saracino: The Singing of Swans
"The Singing of Swans is a remarkable narrative calling--even compelling--us to connect with our own ancestral roots, to seek our own inner wisdom, and to reclaim our own inner voices!" --Margaret Starbird, author of The Woman With the Alabaster Jar & Mary Magdalene: Bride in Exile
Ellen Frankel: Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature and Inner Growth
"If you have ever measured your height or your weight and felt good or bad about yourself as a result, you need this book. In its pages, Ellen Frankel makes an important contribution to human liberation by telling the most fabulous story that can be told, the story of a person coming fully into her own. This book is thought-provoking, heart-rending, and a genuine solace for people of all sizes." --Marilyn Wann, author of FAT!SO?
Pat Ballard: Abigail's Revenge
Injustice, romance and suspense smolder in a small Southern town. Romantic suspense from the Queen of Rubenesque Romances, Pat Ballard.
Pattie Thomas, Ph.D.: Taking Up Space
"Thomas's incisive blend of sociological inquiry and personal narrative amounts to a provocative treatise on fat oppression in our culture. Taking Up Space is a kind of roadmap through the minefield of the 'war on obesity,' and it offers protection to the reader ready to fight for cultural change surrounding the meaning of fatness." --Kathleen LeBesco, Ph.D., author of Revotling Bodies: The Struggle to Redefine Fat Identity.
Anne Richardson Williams: Unconventional Means: The Dream Down Under
Shattered by family tragedy in the early 1960s, an upper-middle-class Southern teenager finds solace in art and literature. Decades later she is called to the continent whose literature once comforted her, and to a magical connection with an Aboriginal woman transcending race and half a world.
Pat Ballard: A Worthy Heir
When Pam Spencer sees the newspaper ad seeking "a worthy heir" to Fiona Bainbridge's millions, she jumps at the chance to get her brother the medical care he needs after a job-related accident. But Reese Bainbridge, Fiona's handsome grandson--and jilted heir--rushes home in anger when he hears his grandmother has moved Pam and her brother into the family mansion. Sparks fly--and Pam is up to the challenge.
Pat Ballard: His Brother's Child
One party, one silver-tongued, double-talking stranger intent on winning a bet, and Faith Carr ends up betrayed, alone, and pregnant. When Edward Brenner shows up on her doorstep intending to right his brother's wrongs, she's scared and vulnerable. But she agrees to marry this stranger to give the baby a father, although keeping him at a distance. She doesn't realize that Edward fell in love with her the moment he saw her. Will her battered self-esteem allow her to see the truth--and her own beauty?
Pat Ballard: Wanted: One Groom
Wealthy Hanna Rockwell will lose her home and her inheritance unless she marries by her 30th birthday. She's stunned when Matt Corbett, the faded rock start she worshipped in her teens, accepts her brother's offer to bail him out of financial trouble if he'll marry her. Her teenaged fantasies come to life--bringing a few surprises with them.
Pat Ballard: Nobody's Perfect
Nella Covington can't believe she's agreed to marry arrogant Samuel du Cannon, even if it IS only a marriage of convenience. He needs a mother for his young son, and she needs to keep her childhood home. If Sam's work keeps him on the road enough, she won't have to deal with him much. Sam's never been attracted to plus-size women, so they won't be tempted to have a real relationship. At least, that's what they keep telling themselves--
Pat Ballard: Dangerous Curves Ahead: Short Stories
Ten romantic tales pack suspense and sizzle into this collection of short stories featuring amply curved women.
