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

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!

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)

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.

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.

From the Guided Autobiography Summit Page.

I will be presenting on December 13 on Professional Growth.

Transformative Storytelling: How GAB Empowers Personal & Professional Growth

Our panel at the Hoboken Library was a hit with the audience. Panelists included Annamaria Alfieri, Tom Coffey, Peggy Ehrhart, Gerri Lewis, and moderator Mark McNease. The topic was Writing A Series: Getting It Started and Keeping It Going. Among the subjects discussed were continuity, outlining (or not), and where to begin.

MEET THE PANEL

Annamaria Alfieri writes the Vera and Tolliver stories, which are set in British East Africa and explore the evils of colonialism. It began with Strange Gods, 1911, The Idol of Mombasa , 1912, The Blasphemers 1913.  The fourth book in the series, A Death on the Lord’s Day, was released in 2024.  The Richmond Times-Dispatch praised the series as having “the flair of Isak Dinesen and Beryl Markham, the cunning of Agatha Christie and Elspeth Huxley.”

Another client book finished!

Seven Summers a Cabana Boy – A. Sacco

A. Sacco delves into the deep recesses of mind and memory to share anecdotes from the best job he ever had. Indelible memories and unforgettable characters—with all the mores and folkways—are chronologically recalled from events taking place more than 50 years ago.

A native New Yorker, A. Sacco worked for 32 years as a Sales Representative in the insurance and related financial services business. He also served as New York City Human Rights Commissioner for 8 years. He was a member of the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on Police and Community Relations. Retired, he now lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

MEET THE PANEL

Annamaria Alfieri writes the Vera and Tolliver stories, which are set in British East Africa and explore the evils of colonialism. It began with Strange Gods, 1911, The Idol of Mombasa , 1912, The Blasphemers 1913.  The fourth book in the series, A Death on the Lord’s Day, was released in 2024.  The Richmond Times-Dispatch praised the series as having “the flair of Isak Dinesen and Beryl Markham, the cunning of Agatha Christie and Elspeth Huxley.”

Tom Coffey grew up on Staten Island. His first novel, The Serpent Club, was published in 1999 by Pocket Books and received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. His second novel, Miami Twilight, came out two years later. In 2008, Toby Press published Blood Alley, which also earned a starred PW review. In 2015, the independent Oak Tree Press published Bright Morning Star.

In 2023, Coffey signed a three-book deal with Level Best Books. Public Morals is the first novel in The Devine Trilogy, which is named after the family at its center. The series examines the arc of law enforcement in New York from the 1980s to the present. The second book, Special Victim, will be released in late November.