• Your Write Path,  Your Write Path Podcast

    Your Write Path Podcast: A Conversation with Ann Aptaker, Award Winning Author of the Cantor Gold Series

    Fasten your headphones for another MWA-NY member interview. Ann Aptaker is the author of the Cantor Gold series, featuring the irrepressible Cantor Gold, art smuggler and rebel living on the edges in late-1940s New York City. The series currently includes Criminal Gold,  Tarnished Gold, Genuine Gold, Flesh and Gold, and Murder and Gold.

    Ann is a Lambda Literary Award (The Lammy) and multiple Goldie Award winner for her popular novels. A native New Yorker, she has earned a reputation as a respected exhibition designer and curator of art during her career in museums and galleries. Exhibitions Ann has curated have garnered favorable reviews in the New York Times, Art in America, American Art Review, and other publications.

    Her short stories and essays have appeared in several major anthologies and in other crime and mystery fiction publications and journals. In addition to curating and designing art exhibitions and writing crime stories, Ann is also an art writer and was adjunct professor of art history at the New York Institute of Technology.

    I had the pleasure of finally meeting Ann at the MWA-NY annual Holiday Revels gathering in New York City this past December, and I couldn’t wait to speak to her again for this interview.

    Are you a MWA-NY member? Would you be interested in an interview for this feature? Contact interviews AT mwany.org for information. – Mark McNease/Comms Team

  • New

    One Time Donation/Lifetime Subscription to Mark McNease On Topic Substack – $25!

    As subscribers to my Mark McNease On Topic Substack know, I’ve eliminated paid and renewing subscriptions. Everyone gets everything, ’cause that’s the kind of provocateur I am. You can, however, donate and get a lifetime subscription for just $25. It’s a subscription! It’s a donation! It’s a tip jar! You decide.

    If you haven’t subscribed yet, this is a great way to do it. Or just sign up at MarkMAMcNease.substack.com. We don’t twist arms at the Tree House, we just imply.

    Let’s roar into 2025 with heads high, open hearts, and curious minds. – Mark

  • New

    A Smashing Smashwords Year End Sale and Giveaway!

    Read All My eBooks Free!

    Santa’s at the door! Merry Christmas, everyone, happy holidays. Enjoy some freebies and deep discounts at the Smashwords Year End Sale!

    All of my ebooks – you heard that right, all of them – are available for free download at Smashwords from December 12 – January 1. That includes:

    6 Kyle Callahan Mysteries
    3 Marshall James Thrillers
    2 Maggie Dahl Mysteries

    Can you say “up all night?” It will take a lot of those sleepless evenings to get through all these page-turners.

    AND there are lots more, from dozens of terrific authors offering their books for free or at deep discounts.

    CHECK OUT MINE HERE AND GET READING!

  • New

    Triple Header: 3 Workshops in March – Fiction Writing Essentials, Character Creation, and Self-Publishing with Kindle Direct Publishing

    Three workshop intensives in one package: Fiction Writing Essentials, followed by Character Creation, and concluding with Self-Publishing with KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing. Each of these is a separate workshop, being offered together for three Mondays in March – and at a savings! Join Mark and the other participants to learn the essentials of writing fiction, how to create characters who will step off your mind onto the page, and how to publish your work yourself as an independent author.

    You can see workshop descriptions at YourWritePath.com, address any questions to YourWritePath AT Outlook. com.

    WHEN: 3 Mondays in March (3, 10, 17)
    TIME: 10:00 am – 12:00 pm eastern
    VIA ZOOM
    REGISTER HERE ($100)

     

  • New

    Workshops Coming at Soupcon in Lambertville!

    Really excited to schedule my first workshop with Soupcon, a local artists’ collective in Lambertville, NJ, for February. And it’s at my favorite venue, Bucks on Bridge, where Soupcon has sublet the art space. I’ve done book readings and workshops there prior to this, and it’s so nice to have a space and community to pursue in-person workshops with.

  • New

    Ancestry, Family Trees, and the Road to Self-Discovery

    Narration provided by Wondervox.

    I finally took the plunge with Ancestry.com. Now that I’m doing workshops on autobiographical and legacy writing, I decided to explore my family tree. I was confused about this for a long time because I’m adopted, but I realized I want to know about the family I grew up with, the people I remember and who shaped me. Seeing my parents and grandparents on this is kind of emotional.

    My ‘origin story’ is complicated, with a birth family I’m in contact with and have some relationships with, and my adoptive family. The people I have always referred to as Mom and Dad are the couple who raised me. I was not told about my adoption until I was 17, which erased any memories I may have had from the first two years of my life. All these decades later, as people got into charting their family trees and their ancestry, I felt ambivalent to say the least: which family is my family? I finally decided, for the purpose of a family tree, that it is the family I grew up with, the parents whose lives I shared until their deaths, the grandmothers I remember from childhood. They are my heart, spirit and blood.

    So … here we go. This is going to be interesting.

    About Family Trees

    Uncovering Your Roots: The Joy of Researching Family Trees

    Researching family trees can be an exciting and enriching journey that connects us to our past, provides insight into our heritage, and fosters a deeper understanding of who we are. Whether you’re a seasoned genealogist or just starting out, the process of tracing your lineage can bring unexpected discoveries and lasting connections. For someone like me who is adopted and not able  to really consider my birth family as my family tree, other then my parents and siblings, it took a long time to reconcile my feelings about this and realize that my interest in ancestry is not about blood. I am a McNease, the son of Margaret  Witmer and Emmett McNease. That is my starting place. All of these suggestions are optional. I’m not a “family stories” kind of person, and there will be a lot of popular things I choose not to do.

  • FATAL MISTAKE AUDIO EDITION,  New

    Fatal Mistake: A Harry Hell Novella (Audio Edition)

    CHAPTER ONE

    CHAPTER TWO

    THERE WILL BE ONE CHAPTER ADDED EACH WEEK! FIND THEM ALL AT THE HARRY HELL PAGE.

    Narration provided by Wondervox.

    I am so excited to bring one of my favorite stories to life for your listening pleasure… a novella, actually, that had an incredibly long gestation in the recesses of my imagination. I’d put it off as an audio option because the voice technology I use wasn’t quite good enough. Now I think it sounds terrific. Yes, it’s AI/synthetic voice. I would never pretend otherwise. So fasten your headphones, and let’s get this dark, dark party started.

    About Fatal Mistake: A Harry Hell Novella
    Buy the eBook Direct and Save! 

    The year is closer than you think. The world has collapsed under the weight of its own insatiable needs, leaving shattered cities where those who still have anything fight to keep it that way, and those who don’t are a constant threat. It’s a danger that must be contained through a tightly controlled society where everyone is observed and everything is kept in its place. Harry Hellerman and his twin brother, Elliot, enter this world three minutes apart. By the time they’re teenagers, they’ve been surrendered to Control to be molded into the perfect assassins. A boy named Harry Hellerman enters, and a man named Harry Hell emerges: a killing machine of the highest order.

    Harry’s life takes a drastic turn when he finds himself teamed with a man named Raul, who becomes his partner in every way. Enter the lethal, dreaded Nectar, queen of the Ruins and slayer of hopes and dreams. Even Harry had them once, but no more. His life soon revolves around one mission only: to take his revenge against Nectar, and die someday with Raul’s name still on his lips. It was all he had left to live for.

    Enter Eastward, and the Ruins, and the Slopes beyond them. Make your way to the river’s edge, misted in darkness, where many have tried to escape but none have ever returned. ‘Fatal Mistake’ begins the journey of a man whose heart had not always been stone. Will it beat again, or will he use it to sink his enemy down, down, down, straight to hell?

  • Mark McNease Mysteries,  Mark McNease Mysteries Podcast,  New

    Mark McNease Mysteries Podcast: Fatal Mistake – A Harry Hell Novella (Chapter One)

    Narration provided by Wondervox.

    I am so excited to bring back the Mark McNease Mysteries Podcast with one of my favorite stories … a novella, actually, that had an incredibly long gestation in the recesses of my imagination. I’d put it off as an audio option because the voice technology I use wasn’t quite good enough. Now I think it sounds terrific. Yes, it’s AI/synthetic voice. I would never pretend otherwise. So fasten your headphones, and let’s get this dark, dark party started.

    About Fatal Mistake: A Harry Hell Novella
    Buy the eBook Direct and Save! 

    The year is closer than you think. The world has collapsed under the weight of its own insatiable needs, leaving shattered cities where those who still have anything fight to keep it that way, and those who don’t are a constant threat. It’s a danger that must be contained through a tightly controlled society where everyone is observed and everything is kept in its place. Harry Hellerman and his twin brother, Elliot, enter this world three minutes apart. By the time they’re teenagers, they’ve been surrendered to Control to be molded into the perfect assassins. A boy named Harry Hellerman enters, and a man named Harry Hell emerges: a killing machine of the highest order.

    Harry’s life takes a drastic turn when he finds himself teamed with a man named Raul, who becomes his partner in every way. Enter the lethal, dreaded Nectar, queen of the Ruins and slayer of hopes and dreams. Even Harry had them once, but no more. His life soon revolves around one mission only: to take his revenge against Nectar, and die someday with Raul’s name still on his lips. It was all he had left to live for.

    Enter Eastward, and the Ruins, and the Slopes beyond them. Make your way to the river’s edge, misted in darkness, where many have tried to escape but none have ever returned. ‘Fatal Mistake’ begins the journey of a man whose heart had not always been stone. Will it beat again, or will he use it to sink his enemy down, down, down, straight to hell?