Mark McNease

Start the year with new thrills in this BookFunnel giveaway featuring mystery maestros Marshall Thornton, Garrett Hutson, Victor Dain, Delilah Knight and more. This giveaway runs from January 1 – 15 only, so surf over and download these chillers packed with secrets, suspense, and bold voices you’ll want to hear again and again.

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Which Resolutions, If Any, Fit You for 2026? Multiple Answers Allowed

• No more news/politics than I need to stay informed
• Simplify everything: fewer commitments, less clutter, real and imagined
• Say yes to joy, fun, laughter and creativity
• Take better care of myself, mentally and physically
• Stay open to new experiences, projects, trips, habits and perspective
• I don’t make resolutions
• Name your own in the comments
• What other resolution(s) would you make for 2026?

I was so happy to help author Stacey Meadows publish Pine Melody: A Memoir, a masterfully written account of her son Jonah’s death in a car accident and her coming to terms with it that culminated in this extraordinary book.

The photos are from Stacey’s book reading, held in Lambertville, New Jersey.

Visit the website for Pine Melody

About Pine Melody

Swerving to avoid a deer on a dark Wisconsin highway in early summer, 22-year old Gabe lost control of the car. His 29 year- old brother, Jonah, singing along with him as he drove, absorbed the full force of the impact with an oncoming pick-up truck driven by the Chief of a First Nation. The crash left Jonah with severe traumatic brain injury, Gabe with a broken femur, and soil samples, meticulously gathered for Jonah’s graduate research project on agroforestry, strewn across the highway.

As general counsel for a Philadelphia medical center, I was competent enough to interact with my sons’ care teams, but lost all semblance of professionalism when neither my legal expertise, search for a medical miracle, nor tenacity of my love was able to bring benefit to Jonah, who lingered in a coma for three months, before dying in hospice. I was left to find a way to carry on for the sake of Jonah’s brothers while handling my own grief and helplessness.

Immersing myself in Jonah’s journals, and memories of his extraordinary, spirit-filled life, my pillars materialized—meditation, yoga, prayer and sailing. With Jonah as my spirit guide, in the bardo and beyond, I navigated pathways between terror and beauty that Jonah had spent his life seeking. Pine Melody is the result of my journey.

Pine Melody on IngramSpark
Pine Melody on Amazon

I started MadeMark Media over 15 years ago. It stepped into the background with my MadeMark Publishing imprint, but they’re both coming back full force in 2026. So exciting!

I love this. Fasten your headphones!

Two years in the making …

I’m writing the final draft of a book based on my workshops for the past nearly-two years: fiction writing essentials, character creation, and self-publishing. I love doing the workshops, and this is a natural outgrowth of that. One of the most rewarding things I learned the past couple years is how much I’ve learned in 50+ years of writing, 15 of self-publishing … it’s a natural progression for me to write this book, and a bit of a ‘what’s next?’ venture. We’re about to find out—what’s next for me, what’s next for this country, what’s next? It really is the question that kept me going through the rough times and difficult years, especially in my youth. I was determined to stick around not just to prove a point, but to find out what my life would look like after whatever crisis I was in had finally passed. I’m still asking myself that question, and I’m still excited to see what comes next.

Now free to current and new subscribers: 

One Thing Or Another: Life, Aging, and the Absurdities Of It All (2nd Edition)

Welcome to the Second Edition of One Thing or Another, a collection of humor columns that takes a look at life, aging, and the absurdities of it all. It’s been a few years since the first edition, and even more since they were written. The Big Six-Oh is now the Big Six-Seven, and life is just as absurd as it was the first go-round.

From our culture’s refusal to use the word ‘old,’ to the sometimes comical consequences of aging in body and mind, if not always in spirit, you’re sure to enjoy this skewed look at life’s foibles for the ages. Collected from the author’s personal columns, these short essays will make you chuckle, recognize yourself, and sometimes grimace at the not-always-funny price we pay for simply staying alive.

Current subscribers will receive a link to download their complimentary copy.

Thanks to Stacey, Michael and Steve for permission to share this. The workshop is two hours long, this is just a sample to show how they work online (and in-person!)

Now on IngramSpark (and Amazon, too!)