Jeanne Braselton, 41; Former Columnist Won Award for Debut Novel

Jeanne Braselton, 41, who won the 2002 Georgia author of the year award for her debut novel, “A False Sense of Well Being,” was found dead Sunday in her residence in Rome, Ga.

Her death was being investigated as an apparent suicide, said Floyd County Coroner Barry Henderson.

A onetime newspaper columnist for the Rome News-Tribune, Braselton signed a two-book, six-figure deal with Ballantine in her late 30s.

A friend of Braselton, George de Man of Rome, said she had left a note indicating that she was unable to get past her husband’s death in February 2002. The note also said that she wanted the final three chapters of her second novel to be completed.

“Her second novel is about getting over grief, told from the perspective of a deceased woman looking down on the husband she left behind,” de Man said.

Her late husband, Albert Braselton, accompanied James Dickey on the river trip that was the basis for Dickey’s novel “Deliverance.”

Jeanne Braselton received the Georgia Writers Assn. award in March 2002, just weeks after the death of her husband. They had been married since 1987.