Talented Georgia authors coming to Smyrna-Vinings

The will welcome Townsend Prize nominated author Ann Hite for a discussion of her novel Ghost On Black Mountain on Thursday night at 7.

No books will be sold at the discussion held in the Smyrna Meeting room, but Hite will autograph books for anyone that brings them.

A Georgia native, Hite's first book is one of 10 finalists for the Townsend Prize for Fiction, which is awarded every other year to a Georgia writer for an outstanding novel.

Ghost On Black Mountain was the alternate pick of the month of October at the following book clubs: Doubleday Book Club, Literary Guild, Mystery Guild, and Doubleday Book Club LP.

Ghost On Black Mountain was released by Gallery Books an imprint of Simon & Schuster this past September. Wrote Publisher’s Weekly about the book - "Will intrigue readers eager for a Southern Gothic tale, and suggests a promising future for the Black Mountain novels to come."

For more information and review’s of Hite’s work, see here.

Then in a few weeks in Vinings there will be the opportunity to meet nationally-renowned and award-winning author, Shelia P. Moses. Her Thursday, Feb. 2 visit to the Vinings Library at 3:30 p.m. will be a part of the library’s program series in honor of African American History Month.

Moses is the co-author of Dick Gregory's memoir, Callus on My Soul, as well as the award-winning author of several books for young readers: The Legend of Buddy Bush; The Return of Buddy Bush; I, Dred Scott: A Fictional Slave Narrative Based on the Life and Legal Precedent of Dred Scott; and The Baptism.

Moses has received several awards for her writing; she was honored as a National Book Award Finalist for Young People’s Literature in 2004. She also earned the Coretta Scott King Book Award Author Honor in 2005 for her book The Legend of Buddy Bush. Her book I, Dred Scott earned her the Georgia Author of the Year Award in 2006. 

Her visit will include a discussion on historical fiction and research as well as a question-and-answer session. A book signing, sponsored by the Friends of the Cobb County Public Library System, will be held after the event.

A full schedule of the African American History Month library’s program series events can be found here. For more information, please call 770-801-5308.

MLK Day is Monday

On Monday, Jan. 16 at the Cobb Civic Center, the community is invited to the 26th annual celebration of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. under the theme "Celebrate: the Life, the Dream, the Legacy."

The 10 a.m. event is free and open to the public and will include the annual presentation of the "Living the Dream" award to a community member who demonstrates the ideals King exemplified.

For more information, please call the Cobb County NAACP office at 770-425-5757. The is located at 548 S. Marietta Parkway in Marietta.

In observance of the holiday, all and will be closed on Monday. There will be no mail delivery Monday by the U.S. Postal Service and most banks will be closed.

administrative offices will be closed, too, but public safety will remain operational. The holiday sanitation/recycling schedule next week will be as follows:

• Monday routes picked up Tuesday.
• Tuesday routes picked up Wednesday.
• Thursday and Friday routes unchanged. 
• No Yard Waste collection during weeks on the holiday schedule.

Hands on Atlanta is seeking to sign up 3,000 volunteers for more than 50 projects on the organization's 17th annual Day of Service on Monday. The volunteers will give more than 10,000 hous of service, the organization said in an announcement. Volunteers can sign up at here

In Smyrna, volunteers will be at , where they will create arts and crafts items for parents, teachers and community leaders, paint bathrooms and create murals on cafeteria banners.

This year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service marks the inauguration of the organization's Civic Leadership Program, "a grant competition designed to equip civic leaders to create and execute innovative, ongoing and volunteer-driven initiatives to alleviate local poverty," the organization said.