{"id":709,"date":"2009-02-04T03:00:07","date_gmt":"2009-02-04T11:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/?p=709"},"modified":"2009-02-04T07:40:04","modified_gmt":"2009-02-04T15:40:04","slug":"welcome-karen-tintori-jill-gregory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/welcome-karen-tintori-jill-gregory\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome Karen Tintori & Jill Gregory"},"content":{"rendered":"

VERY SUPERSTITIOUS…\"jill_gregory\"\"karen_tintori\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s great to be here visiting with you today, but it’s also a bit of a challenge.\u00a0 A good one.\u00a0 While we write thrillers together seamlessly, we were a bit flummoxed about how to go about writing a blog in one voice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The two of us have been best friends since we were young mothers.\u00a0 Our kids met in a mother-toddler class, hit it off immediately, and so did we.\u00a0 We thought we’d end up in-laws one day, but that didn’t happen.\u00a0 Instead, we’re writing partners with five books written together and lots more written separately.\u00a0 Karen is outgoing, Jill is private, but other than that, we two are a lot alike, devoted to our families and to our writing.\u00a0 We finish each other’s sentences, we think with one brain, writing our books line by line together.<\/p>\n

\"the_illumination\"In THE ILLUMINATION, our new release, we explored the ancient belief in the Evil Eye, a protective symbol that plays a prominent role in the book.\u00a0 Before we started our research, Karen\u2014being superstitious\u2014already knew a lot about it, Jill not so much.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Karen:<\/strong>\u00a0 I’m obsessively superstitious.\u00a0 I come by it naturally, being raised in a Sicilian-Italian family where horseshoes wrapped in red ribbons hung over our doorways for protection and St. Christopher rode on the dashboard of our family car.<\/p>\n

From as far back as I can remember, my mother and grandmother warned me about the evil eye\u2014mal occhio<\/em>\u2014and how to protect myself if I thought someone was shooting the evil eye at me.\u00a0 More times than I can count, I watched my grandmother or one of my older female relatives perform the incantations to remove the curse from some hapless victim in our family.<\/p>\n

Jill:<\/strong> I’ve never been particularly superstitious,\u00a0though I’ll admit to avoiding stepping on cracks or walking under ladders.\u00a0 Because…why take chances?\u00a0 Those two are so ingrained, even my practical side won’t risk ignoring them.<\/p>\n

Karen:<\/strong> And you always say, “bread and butter,” when we’re walking somewhere and have to go around opposite sides of a pole or bench or some other obstacle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jill:<\/strong> Okay, that’s another one.\u00a0 I learned to say, “bread and butter” as a little girl.\u00a0 It’s a way of saying “may nothing ever come between us” to avoid breaking a relationship.\u00a0 Has anyone else ever heard about this superstition, or is it a regional Midwest deal?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Karen:<\/strong> I’m into all of it.\u00a0 “Bread and butter.”\u00a0 “You owe me a Coke.” \u00a0Throwing salt over my left shoulder if I spill some accidentally, avoiding black cats\u2014about the only thing I don’t ascribe to is aversion to the number 13.\u00a0 It’s one of my lucky ones, in fact.<\/p>\n

Jill:<\/strong> What I’ve never understood is why you think that if you cry on your birthday, you’ll cry all year long.\u00a0 Every time you say that, it cracks me up.\u00a0 Is that a genuine Italian superstition, or did your mother make it up?<\/p>\n

Karen:<\/strong> Who knows?\u00a0 I don’t.\u00a0 But I try my damnedest not to ever cry on my birthday\u2014even over sentimental cards.\u00a0 My sister, raised in that same Sicilian-Italian family, thinks I’m nuts.\u00a0 Still, when we started our research for THE ILLUMINATION, I learned there was more to the Evil Eye than I thought.\u00a0 The research was…well, eye-opening.<\/p>\n

Jill and Karen:<\/strong> We had a blast learning about the incredible mythology surrounding this ancient symbol\u2014one of the oldest and most wide-spread of all human superstitions.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The eye symbol appeared in Egyptian hieroglyphics and on the cuneiform tablets of the Babylonians and Sumerians.\u00a0 It was also mentioned in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy and Proverbs), and in writings by classical Greek and Roman writers such as Plutarch and Cicero.\u00a0 Even Socrates had a connection to the Evil Eye\u2014he was rumored to have possessed it, holding his followers and admirers under the spell of his magnetic gaze.\u00a0 Who knew?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here are some other tidbits we learned:<\/p>\n