It’s all read and done: ‘Murder at the Paisley Parrot’ is set to release any day now on Audible, iTunes and Amazon. Narrated by Audible Approved narrator Fred Wolinsky, the audiobook brings to life the first book in the Marshall James series. Wolinsky’s steady, experienced narration lets the writing come through and the characters speak for themselves. Listeners will hear the tale of a world-weary man deciding now is the time to talk, to tell a story or three about some murders he was involved in back in the day, Hollywood, 1983. Are you listening?

It’s all read and done: ‘Murder at the Paisley Parrot’ is set to release any day now on Audible, iTunes and Amazon. Narrated by Audible Approved narrator Fred Wolinsky, the audiobook brings to life the first book in the Marshall James series. Wolinsky’s steady, experienced narration lets the writing come through and the characters speak for themselves. Listeners will hear the tale of a world-weary man deciding now is the time to talk, to tell a story or three about some murders he was involved in back in the day, Hollywood, 1983. Are you listening?

Crossposted from LGBTSr.

“Ryan controls devastating psychological material with tight prose, quick scene changes, and a scientist’s observant eye.”

– Publishers Weekly

“With her debut collection Survival Skills, Jean Ryan brings to the short story what Mary Oliver does to poetry.”

– The Los Angeles Review

Welcome to the first of our monthly author profiles. For March we’re featuring Jean Ryan, a master storyteller and skilled practitioner of the literary arts. Jean is to writing what a fine chef is to a meal: offering exquisite creations whose ingredients were calibrated to the last grain of salt, and whose true difficulty lies in their appearance of effortlessness.

From the ‘best of the old LGBTSr’ category: Web Watch is a regular feature highlighting websites of note. This one is a fascinating and fabulous look at LGBT history each day from the indefatigable Dr. Ronni Sanlo, Ed. D.

An excerpt:

Today in LGBT History – March 14

1860, Estonia – Stanislaus Eric, Count Stenbock 14 March 1860 –14 April] 1895)  is born in Estonia. He was a Baltic Swedish poet and writer of macabre fantastic fiction. Virtually forgotten today, he was the aesthete who could out-aesthete the great Oscar Wilde. A writer of opium-induced poems and stories, he once hosted Wilde who dared light a cigarette in front of a bust of Shelly. The sacrilege was so horrible the count fainted.

Continue at Dr. Sanlo’s blog.

Paula Martinac’s stunning novel ‘The Ada Decades’ has been named a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Literary Award:

We’ve just announced the Ferro-Grumley finalists for 2018 (books published in 2017). In alphabetical order by author, they are:

The Heart’s Invisible Furies, by John Boyne (Hogarth Press)

Outside Is The Ocean, by Matthew Lansburgh (University of Iowa Press)

The Disintegrations, by Alistair McCartney (University of Wisconsin Press)

Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado (Greywolf Press)

The Ada Decades, by Paula Martinac (Bywater Books)

Our warmest congratulations to the authors, as well as to the publishing teams that made these books possible.

Continue reading my recent interview with author Paula Martinac. – Mark/Editor

“We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.”

– Stephen Hawking

Along with a fabulous, refreshed and reinvigorated LGBTsr, subscribers will be treated to a complimentary copy of ‘Last Room at the Cliff’s Edge‘, a seat-of-your-pants thriller featuring retired detective Linda Sikorsky and her wife, Kirsten McClellan.

A download link will be sent out in next week’s subscriber email with new content, allowing subscribers to download the eBook directly from Book Funnel (no muss, no fuss), in ePub, MOBI or PDF format. AND it’s complimentary to all new subscribers with their confirmation and welcome emails from MailChimp. So spread the word! Last Room at the Cliff’s Edge … Where checking in is easy, and checking out is hell. And don’t miss the audiobook edition narrated by the spectacular Daniela Acitelli!

Along with a fabulous, refreshed and reinvigorated LGBTsr, subscribers will be treated to a complimentary copy of ‘Last Room at the Cliff’s Edge‘, a seat-of-your-pants thriller featuring retired detective Linda Sikorsky and her wife, Kirsten McClellan.

A download link will be sent out in next week’s subscriber email with new content, allowing subscribers to download the eBook directly from Book Funnel (no muss, no fuss), in ePub, MOBI or PDF format. AND it’s complimentary to all new subscribers with their confirmation and welcome emails from MailChimp. So spread the word! Last Room at the Cliff’s Edge … Where checking in is easy, and checking out is hell. And don’t miss the audiobook edition narrated by the spectacular Daniela Acitelli!

Join co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose as we talk about the news, spaceships in the neighborhood, Stormy Daniels porn spectacular, indigenous food trends, and revenge tweeting.

Enjoy The Twist on Libsyn, iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and right here at The Twist Podcast page.

Copyright 2018 MadeMark Publishing

Mark McNease, Editor

Life is not linear. Love is eternal. Strength is essential.

An excellent grief counselor once told me grief is not linear—it does not build, crescendo, then recede and leave us to move on with our lives. It comes and goes, sometimes for many years.

I look at life that way. It’s not, and need not be lived, as a linear experience: young, older, old. Here, there, gone. Life can be made of cycles and phases, and letting go of something doesn’t mean we won’t do it, or hold it, or be it again.