Author Archives: Claire Count

About Claire Count

Claire Count is a writer branching outside of her comfort zone to share her stories and insights publicly. Resident of Metro Atlanta, USA, her interests include the environment, culture, arts and theatre, Jazz and classical music, organic gardening and bonsai, gaming, and comics. Her preferred literary media is alternative fiction, Fantasy, mystery, poetry and editorials.

Lunch Can Be Murder

Come on over for lunch. We are having murder and mayhem with a side of mystery.

Atlanta Chapter of Sisters in Crime in partnering with the Smyrna Library to host the annual Lunch Can be Murder luncheon at the Smyrna Community Center. We are delighted to have joining us as guest speaker Karen White,  NYT best-selling author of the Tradd Street mysteries.

 

 

Mix and mingle with Karen White, NY Times best-selling author of the Tradd Street Mysteries, and local mystery authors while enjoying a three-course meal catered by Buckhead Chefs.  Adding to the fun are door prize drawings and a mystery puzzle contest. Bring your novels from home or buy new ones at the event to get signed and personalized by the authors.

Southern living meets the Southern unliving in Karen’s paranormal, historical mystery series with a dose of small-town romance. The seven-book series stars Melanie Middleton, an OCD realtor with psychic abilities, true crime mystery writer, Jack Trenholm, a growing cast of quirky characters, and a host of ghosts haunting Charleston’s historic homes. The first book in the series, The House on Tradd Street (2008), won rave reviews for crafting a “powerfully emotional blend of family secrets, Low Country lore, and love.” The sixth book in the seven-book series will be released in Fall 2018.

Publisher’s Weekly: “…Charming and complex living characters, combined with unsettled ghosts that balance uncanny creepiness with very human motivations, keep this story warm, real, and exciting.”

 

 

After playing hooky one day in the seventh grade to read Gone With the Wind, Karen White knew she wanted to be a writer or become Scarlett O’Hara. In spite of these aspirations, Karen pursued a degree in business and graduated cum laude with a BS in Management from Tulane University. Ten years later, after leaving the business world, she fulfilled her dream of becoming a writer and wrote her first book. In the Shadow of the Moon was published in August 2000. Her books have since been nominated for numerous national contests including the SIBA (Southeastern Booksellers Alliance) Fiction Book of the Year, and has twice won the National Readers’ Choice Award. When not writing, she spends her time reading, scrapbooking, playing piano, and avoiding cooking. She currently lives near Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and two children, and two spoiled Havanese dogs.

If you are in the area, this is an event not to miss. https://www.sincatlanta.com/lunch-can-be-murder

http://www.karen-white.com/books.cfm

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Filed under Georgia Writing Events, Literary Events, Literary World

February Word Builders

 

In Late January, The Washington Post published an article about the Doomsday Clock. It is now TWO minutes until Midnight.  In the article it sighted the tensions between the USA and North Korea, citing the puerile name calling by the countries’ leaders. The editors felt a need to define in the body of the article the meaning of one of the words used by Kim Jong Un to describe the US President. Sad that they felt that North Korea’s leader’s use of English was above that of the average US Newspaper reader.

to Quote the Article, because they said it so well:

Kim responded with an arcane insult, declaring in an unusually direct and angry statement published by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency: “I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire.” (Oxford defines dotard as “an old person, especially one who has become weak or senile.”)

http://www.ajc.com/news/doomsday-clock-moved-now-minutes-midnight/1JhWnMKF5AeYX408WmLvRP/

In that Washington Post was so amazed by the word they wrote an article on it detailing its history and recent rise in popularity.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/09/21/a-short-history-of-the-word-dotard-which-north-korea-called-trump/?utm_term=.d97f20ae727a

I would argue that the word was Arcane  ( Adj) – understood by few, mysterious or secret  ( per Google’s Dictionary).

oh – and my word  Puerile :(Adj) childish or silly, immature,   Can mean relating to childhood but I have seldom seen it used in that context.   Etymologically:  in Latin puer = boy

Other words of recent note in the post-Black Panther age

Afrofuturism – a blend of science fiction and fantasy into African culture – First use of word credited to Mark Dery in his 1994 essay “Black to the Future”  – and captured powerfully in Marvel’s Black Panther country of Wakanda.

http://www.ajc.com/entertainment/how-the-resurgence-afrofuturism-goes-beyond-black-panther/cWngUfLoui3o0BXGsHfn7I/

Diaspora-noun –  the dispersion a people from their native lands –  such as the diaspora of Venezuelans

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by | February 19, 2018 · 1:24 PM