-
An Emmy Nomination Once Again! (It’s Only Been 20 Years)
Yes, it’s true. I’ve been nominated for an Emmy again, as a co-creator of the multiple Emmy-winning children’s TV program, Into the Outdoors. I have an Emmy on my shelf from 2002. What better way to ease into my retirement next April than with another statue?
-
Lee Lynch Retires Her Amazon Trail Column
Crossposted from LGBTSr.com
For almost as long as I’ve had this website I’ve enjoyed sharing author Lee Lynch’s Amazon Trail columns. I often said, if it’s a new month, it’s a new Amazon Trail. I looked forward to each and every one, offering Lee’s wisdom, experience, humor, and passion, as she shared her perspective on the world she’s lived in and the world we share. Lee is not shy, and her candor is among the most refreshing things about her. She’s also a legend in lesbian fiction, most deservedly so, with a Golden Crown Literary Society award named in her honor. My appreciation for her wit, her talent, and her personal generosity is boundless, and I’m most pleased to call her a friend. Some people lead by simply being who they are, and Lee has always been, and will always be, one of them.
You can read many of her collected columns in her book, An American Queer: The Amazon Trail
“This collection of Lee Lynch’s columns chronicles over a quarter century of queer life in the United States, from the last decades of the twentieth century into the twenty-first.
“From the beginning of my writing career, I just wanted to write about lesbian/gay life as I experienced it. Like so many, I came from a place of great isolation. At the same time, being gay filled me with great pride and joy. Writers Jane Rule, Isabelle Miller, Radclyffe Hall, Valerie Taylor, Ann Bannon, and Vin Packer gave me inspiration and even the lesbian companionship I needed as a baby dyke. More than anything, I want to give to gay people what those writers gave me. And I want to do it well enough that my words might someday be considered literature and, as such, might endure because, as open as some societies have become, there are always haters, and cycles of oppression. Our writers strengthen us, offer a sense of solidarity and validation that we are both more than our sexualities and are among the best that humanity offers.”
About Lee Lynch
Photo by Sue Hardesty Lee Lynch is the co-curator, with S. Renee Bass, of the recent collection, Our Happy Hours, LGBT Voices From the Gay Bars, available from Flashpoint Publications. Her novel, Rainbow Gap, is available from Bold Strokes Books and other outlets. Her book, An American Queer, a collection of “The Amazon Trail” columns, was presented with the 2015 Golden Crown Literary Society Award in Anthology/Collection Creative Non Fiction. This, and her award-winning fiction, including The Raid, The Swashbuckler, and Beggar of Love, can be found at http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com/Author-Lee-Lynch.html.
-
LGBTSr Subscriber Giveaway: Custom LGBTSr.com Coffee Mug!
What better way to start your morning than with some coffee, tea, or your favorite beverage sipped from a custom LGBTSr.com coffee cup! I’ll be giving 5 of them away on my birthday, October 28. Yes, it’s my birthday, and I’m doing the giving! This will be for subscribers only, so subscribe HERE, and look for more details in October. I’ll be selecting 5 random subscribers and getting the cups off to them in time to curl up by a November fire. – Mark
-
One Thing or Another: Found At Sea
By Mark McNease
It’s always One Thing or Another… a lighthearted look at aging, life, and the absurdities of it all.
Bodies of water hold a fascination for many people, as well as providing an indescribable comfort. I grew up in an Indiana town with two rivers, and I live just a mile from the magnificent Delaware flowing slowly between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. For me there has always been something about the movement of these vast waterways that felt like home, as if I really am a fish out of water longing to jump back in where I belong and swim away.
-
‘Palm Springs Noir’ Continues Series of Noir Anthologies from Akashic Books
I’m delighted to say my friend and fellow mystery author Michael Craft is among the authors featured in this newest anthology from Akashic Books. (You can listen to my podcast interview with Michael HERE.) Michael is among the finest writers you’ll encounter, with a skill and delivery that make his name very fitting: a craftsman and a wordsmith whose writing you’ll want to savor. If you’re not familiar with his fiction, you can start now with Palm Springs Noir!
-
On Dreamshaping: Exit Signs
Mark McNease
There was something different about that morning. It could have been just another morning when I woke up feeling stagnant, overweight and overwhelmed. But when I opened my eyes, and my mind worked its way sluggishly back to the ‘real’ dream, the one I call my life, I had an unusually clear sense that the time had come: the time to change things, the time to rearrange the interior of my personal world, the time to shape what I experience as reality and my place in it.
I’d been on the same figurative road for years. I’d allowed myself to settle into a sort of perpetual frustration, and to think that if only I did some thing, or some things, differently, I would find the elusive happiness I’d always wanted but had cynically dismissed as a marketing tool for the self-empowerment crowd. I’d told myself contentment was much more important that happiness – and what is happiness, anyway? A puppy? An ideal job? Or, most probably, an illusion.
-
On Dreamshaping: Straws and Camels
Mark McNease
I can’t name a specific date and time, but at some point the past few months I stopped paying attention to the news beyond what I need to stay informed. Is there a significant natural disaster nearby I need to know about? Has a foreign invader breached our northern shores? Have scientists discovered that drinking eight cups of coffee a day leads to a long life or that it causes permanent memory loss? There’s the local political stuff I want to know about, like who the next governor of New Jersey might be, and which dismal choice I’ll have to make next year for health insurance. But the overall big picture, the cloud of dread and anxiety that is our current 24/7 news cycle? I just can’t indulge in it anymore. Very little of it uplifts me and much of it depresses me. It’s as if, given the possibility we are not living in the end times, we’ve collectively decided to make it appear as if we are, like that Buck Owens and Roy Clark song I remember from Hee Haw, “Gloom, despair, and agony on me …”
-
Audiobook Sale for May! ‘Beautiful Corpse’ Just $2.99 for the Month
On sale for the month of May from Authors Direct! The audiobook for Beautiful Corpse: A Marshall James Thriller is just $2.99 for the month. Narrated by Sean Rhead, who is set to do Reservation for Murder later this year. Normally $14.95 at Audible, $8.95 at your other favorite retailers.
It’s been over a year since Marshall James first became intimately familiar with murder. He’s six months sober now and happily living with the love of his life, LAPD Detective Mac McElroy. Despite the coming storm of AIDS and its devastating toll on the world Marshall knows, his dark days seem to be behind him. Then one night he says the wrong thing, storms out in anger, and walks straight into a nightmare. Someone is setting him up to take the fall for a beautiful corpse. But who would do something so evil, and so planned? Within hours he finds himself running from the police and the mob, and running toward a killer he must apprehend before the only chance left is no chance at all. -
On Dreamshaping: Nowhere to Hide
Mark McNease
Wherever I go, there I am!
It’s an old adage, meant to be humorous but with a grain of truth to it. The one thing I cannot escape is also the one thing I spend so much time attempting to flee: myself. My repetitive thoughts, my obsessions, my fixations, all playing out in loops that sometimes remind me of spools of yarn that have become entangled. Do I do this today? Do I do that? If I don’t to this, will I feel freer? What will bring me the simple relief I crave?
Another common analogy is that nearly all of us possess – or are possessed by – a monkey mind. This one is self-explanatory: what is something monkeys are known for? Jumping! Limb to limb, restless, never ceasing to move. That is a good description of our minds. It certainly captures what I experience almost every day. And the more I attempt to stop jumping, to settle on one fragile limb and stay there, the more another limb grabs my attention and within an instant I’ve jumped to that one. On and on, hour after hour, day after day.
-
Q Audiobooks: Conflict of Interest (Portland Police Bureau Series, Book 1), by Jae, Narrated by Abby Craden
This week’s Q Audiobooks pick sticks with one of my favorite genres. Written by prolific lesbian romance author Jae, it features a workaholic detective (is there any other kind?) who falls for a psychologist. Will circumstances keep them apart, or can they overcome the obstacles, including crime? Fasten your headphones and find out for yourself in Conflict of Interest.
-
Two (Count ‘Em, 2!) Kindle eBook Giveaways: Reservation for Murder, and Beautiful Corpse
It’s no mystery I love offering complimentary eBooks from time to time, and April provides a great opportunity to spring into action with two free eBooks for five days. The following titles are available as Kindle giveaways from April 27 – May 1. Just click each title and and enjoy!
Reservation for Murder: A Kyle Callahan Mystery
It’s been several years since Kyle Callahan sought the help of a New York City therapist to overcome the trauma of his encounter with a serial killer, and just as long since his investigation into a teenage girl’s murder brought down the Manhattan District Attorney. He and his husband Danny Durban have decided to move away, to start a new life in the idyllic river city of Lambertville, New Jersey. They have friends there. They’ll have peace and quiet. They can leave the hustle and bustle and stresses of America’s biggest metropolis behind.
They open a bed and breakfast, and soon discover that murder and mayhem are waiting to check in. There’s a writers conference in town, with big names and big egos heading for a clash—and a killing—of titans. No sooner has the ink dried on the guest registry than Kyle finds himself pursuing another murderer, this one closer to home than they’ve ever come. He enlists the help of his old friend and local resident Linda Sikorsky, once a detective on the New Hope, Pennsylvania, police force. The two of them follow one lead after another in a race against time until the shocking truth is exposed.
-
Four Audiobook Titles Now Discounted at Authors Direct!
In my ongoing push to free myself from exclusivity (KDP, ACX), I’ve added a storefront at Authors Direct with the four audiobooks I’ve been able to distribute widely. Hearing is believing! Fasten your headphones and enjoy the savings, too!
-
Supernatural Chiller ‘A House in the Woods’ Joins April Thriller Promo!
For the month of April my supernatural chiller, ‘A House in the Woods,’ is part of a Book Funnel discount promo. You can get lots of good mysteries, thriller and chillers for bargain prices, including books by Stephen Bentley, M.G. Cole, Lynn Emery, and many more. JUST CLICK HERE and start downloading!