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On the Map: Cruising the Caribbean on the Anthem of the Seas (Includes Slideshow and Video)
By Mark McNease
Reprinted from LGBTSR.com
On the Map is a feature at LGBTSr offering travel reviews and experiences.
If you know us, you know we love to cruise, and we’ve been doing it for the 17 years we’ve been together. Now that we’re both retired from the 9-5 world (I prefer the word emancipated), we’re cruising even more. We went to Canada last October, with stops in Boston, Portland, Bar Harbor, Halifax and St. John. We’re heading on another cruise in May, but in the meantime … we just did an 11-nighter to the Caribbean, on Royal Caribbean’s Anthem of the Seas.
Cruising is one of the most popular ways to travel and relax at the same time. Cruises offer a variety of benefits that make them appealing to people who like just chilling out at sea, and people who love visiting ports and taking excursions. You can get it all on a cruise, and it’s one of the most affordable getaways available. If you didn’t want to spend any extra money for food, you wouldn’t have to. It’s included! We like going to some of the specialty restaurants, and I enjoy eating locally for lunch, but there’s food available on the ship 24/7.
Five ports in five days!
I love sea days, when we have the entire day and night just to relax, do activities on the ship, encounter people we’ve made friends with on the cruise, and … nap! I’m a big napper. If I can’t get an hour’s sleep in the cabin, I’m happy to recline in a chaise on deck or by the pool, and settle in for a good read and a snooze.
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Mark S. King Among Playwrights Featured with National Queer Theater’s ‘Write It Out’ at New York’s LGBT Center
Donja R. Love (seated center) and the playwrights of Write It Out! 2023. Photo courtesy of My Fabulous Disease Reprinted with permission from Mark S. King’s My Fabulous Disease
The Emotional Triumph of Playwrights Living with HIV
You should know the end of the story first, because the ending demands to be heard. It took place last month in the largest event space at The LGBT Center in New York City, where hundreds of people were excitedly greeting each other, grazing at the food table or sitting in rapturous anticipation for a unique evening of theater.
Over the course of the next two hours, seven pairs of actors would take turns on stage, presenting individual scenes filled with insight, humor, and moments of joyful, sometimes painful truth.
The night was a triumph. There was laughter, emotional silences, nods of recognition and roars of approval. Those roars were only multiplied when, after the final scene, the playwrights who wrote the seven scenes were invited to the stage.
The playwrights were new to this. Some had never before written a theatrical scene. Some had traveled across the country to be there. And each and every one of them was living with HIV. They stood together, holding hands, while the packed audience cheered thunderously. It is a sound that would ring in the grinning playwrights’ ears for days to come.
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The Twist Podcast #251: Rick’s Big Birthday, Caribbean Cruise Memories, and an Interview with Hollywood Hustle Author Jon Lindstrom
Join co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose for a recap of Mark’s Caribbean cruise, party hat hurrahs for Rick’s big birthday, and Rick’s interview with Hollywood Hustle author Jon Lindstrom.
Winston Greene, a has-been film star, wakes one morning to find his six-year-old granddaughter at his bedside—traumatized, unattended, and gripping onto a thumb drive. She comes bearing video proof that her mother, Win’s troubled adult daughter, has been kidnapped by a murderous gang demanding all his “movie money” for her safe return. But what they don’t know is…his movie money is long gone.
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Podcast Pick: LGBTQ History Alive, with Ronni and Kelly (First Up: Kate Ullman, Activist and co-founder of The L-Fund)
If you haven’t listened yet to Ronni Sanlo and Kelly Watson’s LGBTQ History Alive podcast, fasten your headphones!
LGBTQ History Alive with Ronni and Kelly
“LGBTQ+ people have a long rich history. It offers hidden stories that we never learned in school, and it acknowledges that the LGBTQ+ community is far more diverse than we ever imagined! Our sheros, heroes and they-roes call us to remember. Dr. Ronni Sanlo and Dr. Kelly Watson share the history with guests who’ve made that history happen. Join us each Monday where LGBTQ+ History is ALIVE! Courses and books may be banned in other places but not here. Our history will NOT be hidden, not with us two old lesbians on guard!
Meet the two old lesbians – us!
Ronni Sanlo , Ed.D., is a retired UCLA professor and LGBTQ Center director, founder of the award-winning Lavender Graduation, and editor of the four volume This Day in LGBTQ History. Kelly Watson, Ph.D, DDS, is a retired recovery center director and business professional, and still and always involved with 12 step recovery.”
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Savvy Senior: How to Fight Back Against Age Discrimination in the Workplace
Narration provided by Wondervox.
By Jim Miller
Dear Savvy Senior,
What are the steps to take to fight against age discrimination in the workplace, and where can I turn to for help if I think I’ve got a case?
Passed Over Paul
Dear Paul,
If you believe your age has cost you in the workplace – whether it’s a job, a promotion, or a raise – you have options for fighting back. Here’s what you should know along with some steps to take against this illegal workplace activity.
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Join my ARC Team for Review Copies of Recent and Upcoming Releases!
Now you can join my ARC (advance review copy) team for review copies of recent and upcoming releases. Just SUBSCRIBE HERE. And coming up next: Fatal Mistake: A Harry Hell Novella.
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The Twist Podcast #250: Blast Off in 2024, Listeners Chime In on the New Year, and An Interview with Author Lucas Hilderbrand
Listen in as co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose leap into the New Year, hear from listeners about their hopes for 2024, and enjoy an interview with author and professor Lucas Hilderbrand.
Fasten your headphones for a conversation with Professor Lucas Hilderbrand, whose latest book, The Bars Are Ours, offers a meticulously researched, scholarly and always engaging look at the history of gay bars and their place in queer culture over the decades. We talk about his life, his career, and his dedication to a subject that is as significant as ever.
About Lucas Hilderbrand
Lucas Hilderbrand is Professor of Film and Media Studies at the University of California, Irvine, and author of Inherent Vice: Bootleg Histories of Videotape and Copyright, also published by Duke University Press, and Paris Is Burning: A Queer Film Classic.
Hilderbrand lives in Los Angeles and teaches film and media, visual, and queer studies at the University of California, Irvine. He has written on the pleasures and politics of video bootlegging, the mediations of queer memory, and the ambiguities of experimental documentary.
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Adds to Bio: Board Member of the Mystery Writers of America – New York Chapter (2024)
I’m officially on the Board for the Mystery Writers of America-New York Chapter! I’ll be heading up the mentoring program. Great start to the new year.
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The Twist Podcast #249: 2023 in the Rearview
Join co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose with a look back at an incredible year – the good, the bad and the meh.
Enjoy The Twist on Libsyn, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, and TheTwistPodcast.com.
Copyright 2023 MadeMark Publishing
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The Twist Podcast #249: 2023 in the Rearview
Join co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose with a look back at an incredible year – the good, the bad and the meh.
Enjoy The Twist on Libsyn, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, and TheTwistPodcast.com.
Copyright 2023 MadeMark Publishing
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It’s Official: ‘Killer Instinct: A Marshall James Thriller’ Set for Release in Spring, 2024
Two chapters in … three bodies to go. Find out what happened after Marshall got the hell out of L.A. for his life in New York City, only to discover that, “Death beat me to town on the red-eye.”
I’m finally writing a 4th installment in my popular Marshall James series. We’re both getting pretty long in the tooth, Marshall and I, and he kept pestering me to tell at least one more story.
On a more practical front, my gay/lgbtq books have done well over the last 12 years, so I’m returning to that fertile and marginally profitable territory. As much as I love my I, Warlock, and the two House in the Woods books, I can’t seem to get much traction with them. Maybe writing them as M.A. McNease had some effect on that, since people who’ve followed me as Mark aren’t all aware of these books. I loved writing them, and the Warlock Wars promised readers three installments. I’m a writer of my word, so I’ll be busy this year. In the meantime, it’s good to hear Marshall’s voice in my ear again, offering his take on life as a happy pessimist.
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The Weekly Readlines December 23
New logo, new year (almost)!
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump cannot be on the primary ballot because he incited and supported the January 6 insurrection, in violation of Article 3 of the 14th Amendment. SCOTUS will have to decide the issue, and it’s nobody’s guess how that will go.
Wisconsin’s Supreme Court threw out the GOP-gerrymandered maps that had given them an undemocratic lock on state government.
Americans remain pessimistic, blaming it on President Biden because … why not? Many of them hope an unhinged, maniacal dictator will heal their booboos and bring sunshine upon the land. The clock is ticking!
And morning people probably have Neanderthal genes, something I’ve always believed about myself as I hurry out of bed at 5:00 a.m. Merry Christmas.
GRAB BAG ‘O HEADLINES
In Russia, Parents Are Having Gay Children Abducted To Be ‘Cured’
Washington PostFrom Drag Bans To Sports Restrictions, 75 Anti-LGBTQ Bills Have Become Law In 2023
BBC News -
New Promo Video for ‘Hell to Pay: A House in the Woods 1 and 2’