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The Paperbacks Have Arrived
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Walking the Pandemic: The Delaware Canal, Pennsylvania Side (Slideshow)
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New Logo, New Times, New Journeys
I’m tired of being in the “author” box. I may write more fiction, I may not, but I will always get up in the early morning to do something, it’s what keeps me going. My Facebook page is now Mark McNease Creative, and you can see I’ve redone my logo here as well. Podcasting, publishing, editing, writing, whatever sparks are flying any given day. It’s always now or never, don’t you think?
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One Thing or Another: An Economy to Die For
By Mark McNease
It’s always One Thing or Another… a lighthearted look at aging, life, and the absurdities of it all.
Have a grandparent to spare? Now’s your chance to volunteer one in sacrifice to the economy. All positions available!
Who needs old people, really? What do they do besides eat, talk about how hard it is to get old, drive RVs across the country, and bother people with questions about the simplest techie things? Think of all the good use they could be put to as frontline workers in the apocalypse.
That’s the thinking in certain conservative circles these days. The Lieutenant Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick, started the doomsday ball rolling when he said he’d be willing to work to save the economy for his grandchildren. I wasn’t aware he hadn’t worked before, or that he wasn’t getting paid while he sat around saying these things, but that’s another matter. The idea caught fire, especially among wealthy pundits and Republicans who have never been, and will never be, essential workers … like grocery store clerks, nurses, police officers, and baristas. Something tells me they know they won’t actually have to risk their lives for their grandchildren, but it sounds heroic. Things that sound heroic but have no chance of happening are favorites with men who fancy themselves soldiers, having avoided any real wars. It’s cool to say you’ll take a bullet, especially for future generations, when the gun’s empty.
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One Thing or Another: Panic in Aisle 9
By Mark McNease
It’s always One Thing or Another… a lighthearted look at aging, life, and the absurdities of it all.
This one’s for posterity, since the terms ‘coronavirus’ and ‘covid-19’ will hopefully be behind us in a few months.
Who needs that much toilet paper, seriously? I can understand a couple of 12-packs, but an entire shopping cart? Are these people planning on being housebound for the next month? And what do they expect the rest of us to do—the ones who don’t think filling our garage with paper products is the best use of resources at a time of national crisis?
I’m not one to take a pandemic lightly. Not only am I at the age most ripe for paying the steep price of negligence, but I care about my friends, neighbors and co-workers. A good Corona beer joke seemed acceptable a couple of weeks ago, now, not at all. I’ve always been one to admit what I don’t know, and I don’t know, as most of us do not, how this will play out. Will we see a surge in people running to the emergency rooms, overwhelming our healthcare infrastructure and exhausting our healthcare workers? Will fatalities begin to pile up, expanding exponentially as this novel virus spreads like a silent, gaseous killer among the population?
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‘Beautiful Corpse: A Marshall James Thriller’ Now Available for Pre-Order, Releasing March 30
We haven’t seen the last of Marshall James, as he returns to tell another harrowing story of another series of murders back in the day. It’s been over a year since Murder at the Paisley Parrot saw Marshall barely surviving a brush with the mob, a close encounter with a serial killer, and a tumble into love with LAPD Detective Mac McElroy. All is well and the bad days seem behind him … until suddenly they’re not.
You can pre-order Beautiful Corpse for the reduced, pre-order price of $1.99 at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Apple Books. Get ready for a killer read when the book arrives March 30.
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My Guest Turn on the Gay Mystery Podcast Available Now for Listening!
What fun! My guest turn on Brad Shreve’s Gay Mystery Podcast is now available for listening. Fasten your headphones as we talk about writing, books, gay mysteries, and, of course, me! CLICK TO LISTEN.
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Teaser for My Upcoming Interview with Host Brad Shreve on the Gay Mystery Podcast
What fun it was talking with host Brad Shreve on his Gay Mystery Podcast. In this teaser, I’m explaining the inspiration for my first Kyle Callahan mystery. The full interview drops this coming Thursday, March 9, at the Gay Mystery Podcast and wherever your favorite podcasts are enjoyed.
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One Thing or Another: 2020 Vision
By Mark McNease
It’s always One Thing or Another… a lighthearted look at aging, life, and the absurdities of it all.
Two months into a new year and this one feels different. Depending on your preferred echo chamber, America is either experiencing a renaissance of greatness restored by the last presidential election, or crumbling into a sinkhole of authoritarian despair. The earth is slowly catching fire while the ice caps melt, or it’s all a conspiracy to make us vote for liberals. The extremes are increasingly extreme, and now, as we hurtle toward an election many people are declaring the most significant in their lifetimes, it’s all too much, like a hangover breakfast at a diner after a party you never wanted to attend. We live under sustained assault by social media and a news cycle that stopped knowing how to shut off back when the Indian head ceased displaying on our TV screens from midnight till 6:00 a.m.
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Why Pete Buttigieg’s Campaign was a BFD
I hope there are plenty of gay boys out there right now saying, “Wow, look at that. I think I’ll stay alive another day and maybe, just maybe, I can get through this.”
I like Pete Buttigieg. I first heard about him when I learned that South Bend, Indiana, had a gay mayor. I grew up two towns over, in Elkhart, and I’d gone to school in South Bend for a few years. My parents had a music store there, and, of course, Notre Dame is located nearby. As someone who’d been an out gay teen in high school, I never thought I’d live to see a gay mayor in a place I might call my hometown, if I ever thought I had one. That’s how alien I felt as a kid: I had no hometown, and I fled the state three days after my high school graduation.
Now let’s talk about ‘Mayor Pete’ and why his candidacy was a Big F-king Deal.
I know the trend for the last several years has been to denigrate things like a gender binary, privilege, whiteness, maleness, and the very idea of gayness, which, to many of a younger generation, now leaves a sour taste in their mouths. What can be more passé than being a cisgender, white, gay man, right? Well, let me tell you …
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Another Great Promo with Book Funnel: LGBTQ Fiction
Another month, another great promo with Book Funnel. Lots of free eBooks for fans of LGBTQ fiction – mysteries, literary fiction, shorts and more. And, of course, my thriller, ‘Murder at the Paisley Parrot.’ Cruise over and start downloading.
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Frank and I in NJ.com for the Rotary Clubs’ Hunterdon County Soup Cook-Off
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Guest Rick Rose Joins Me for Our February Look Back – Fasten Your Headphones!
Guest Rick Rose returns for our monthly look back to catch up on the latest in politics, culture and food whimsy for February. You say acquitted, I say impeached, let’s call the whole thing off! Plus: Bernie scares the moderates, blue popcorn, and Sotomayor takes a stand.
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