Tag: Jackson County Georgia

Ice Bound in Jackson County Georgia

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Life in general2 Comments

Snow and Shadows
Last weekend’s snow in central and north Georgia dumped six inches of very celestial powdery white stuff on our small town. A few hours before it all began Sunday night, I saw the mayor at an event at the Crawford W. Long Museum and asked if the city was ready for the winter storm.

He indicated we would attack the streets with our personal shovels and spades. So far, nobody’s shoveling off our street. The problem really isn’t the snow. It’s the freezing rain and freeing drizzle that came down on top of the snow. The traffic around metro Atlanta is a chaos of wrecks, jack-knifed tractor trailers blocking the interstates, and cars in the ditch.

At least, metro-Atlanta has sand and salt trucks and plows. We don’t. So, we are more or less ice bound even though the ice is probably less than a half an inch. Yesterday, the temperature got up over freezing for just long enough to begin creating slush, slush that froze solid last night making the roads worse than they are.

Footprints next to a slick driveway
We’ve been making do with whatever groceries happened to be in the refrigerator from last week. The vat of chili has been tasty, but were running low on wine, candy and doughnuts. The snow has brought a lot of birds to our feeders, giving the cats something to watch out the kitchen window.

After living in northern Illinois, I feel somewhat awkward being snow bound and/or ice bound with less than a foot of snow. A friend who got hit with 14 inches of snow says that we’re just lightweights down here in Jackson County, Georgi.

Possibly so. We’re staying warm, though. Wasting time on Facebook. Reading more. Being ice bound is conducive to working on my next novel. Goodness knows, I can’t escape from it right now. As the words pile up, I can feel virtuous about my dedication even though the weather ought to get a mention on the acknowledgments page of Sarabande when it comes out later this year.

Thank you for all your help, Mother Nature.

Ah, a locomotive’s horn: well, at least the trains are running.

—Malcolm

Learn more about my novel The Sun Singer via Vanilla Heart Publishing’s book club extras!

The beauty of a regional magazine

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Publications2 Comments
November 2008 Issue
November 2008 Issue

While newspapers as we now know them will probably be all but gone within ten years (A Former Newspaper Boy Watches News Trends), the world of local and regional magazines has remained strong.

Writing in Folio Magazine earlier this year, Jason Fell said that “While much of the publishing industry grits its teeth in anticipation of a recession and established publishers reign in their print launches, the city and regional market remains hot, thanks to a low barrier to entry and a continued demand for print.”

Living Jackson Magazine, a superb example of regional magazine strength, is headquartered in Jefferson, Georgia, some 60 miles northeast of Atlanta along I-85. The magazine will celebrate two and a half years of publication at this year’s Christmas party.

This monthly magazine with high production values has a strong editorial focus: our county. In this case, Jackson County perched along U.S. Highway 129 between Gainesville and Athens. The website blurb says it well: The quality and quantity of editorial content in Living Jackson is bar none. Living Jackson utilizes the area’s best writers and photographers and Living Jackson is 100 percent local! Readers discover all that Jackson County has to offer through the pages of Living Jackson magazine, and they learn why our lovely area is known as “spacious, gracious and vibrant.”

I’m biased, of course, because I’m right here in Jackson County and have found it a wonderful change of pace from the hustle and bustle of Atlanta where I lived for 18 years. I’m also biased because I’m a contributing writer for Living Jackson for many of the book reviews.

If you were to move to Jefferson, the county seat, you would first notice the town square, one of the town’s historic districts, and its 1858 general store (now part of Crawford W. Long Museum) and you would see the quiet city streets, you might stop for coffee at Coffee Philter which all of us will tell you beats Starbucks, and you might stroll through the the old mill–the cotton and corduroy long gone–now used for multiple retail businesses under the Real Deals name.

But if you really wanted to learn about your new county, picking up the last two years of Living Jackson would tell you just who we are and where we’ve been. Our Christmas party on December 5th will celebrate a lot of hard work, dedication and love of people and place.

P.S. Noted on 11/9/21–Sadly, this magazine is no longer in business. Lack of readers. Lack of advertisers. But, as they say, it was fun while it lasted. The photo was a link and with the magazine gone, the link is gone.