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EVENTS: Authors Mark McNease and Philip William Stover in Conversation at the Frenchtown Bookshop (February 4)
Save the date! I’ll be joining fellow author Philip William Stover for a reading and conversation about our books at the Frenchtown Bookshop on Friday, February 4. I’ll be talking about my newest release, Reservation for Murder: A Kyle Callahan Mystery, as well as the series and creating gay central characters.
Philip will be reading and discussing his romances The Hideaway Inn and The Beautiful Things Shop, set in New Hope, PA, just across the river from Lambertville, NJ, where most of my characters mysteriously moved when Frank and I relocated to nearby Kingwood.
Place: The Frenchtown Bookshop
Date: Friday, February 4
Time: 6:00 – 7:30 pm
Address: 28 Bridge Street, Frenchtown NJ
Phone: 908-628-9297 -
The Weekly Readlines December 29
The Weekly Readlines (rhymes with headlines!) is a feature at LGBTSr.com, offering news you can use every Wednesday morning. Subscribe here for virtual delivery.
BIG CUP: THE YEAR’S TOP STORIESIn keeping with the spirit of renewal and hope for the new year, I’ll only be mentioning the good news of the past year in this introduction. There will be plenty of time for the pulling of hair and gnashing of teeth in 2022.
If you tuned into the mainstream media this past year, you may think all is doom and gloom, that the Biden presidency has failed, that Covid is a permanent state of being, and a dozen other reasons to end your life. Hogwash! Here are some of the great things that happened this year.
Holiday sales rose 8.5 percent despite the naysayers. Americans’ wages rose, too, with the biggest increase in 20 years. More than 200 million Americans are now vaccinated, with the pandemic transitioning to an endemic stage on its way to ending. Supply chains are easing and gas prices are falling.
Meanwhile, the FDA approved the first injectable drug for HIV prevention. Utah billionaire Jeff Green resigned from the Mormon Church and donated $600,000 to an LGBT group. And Channing Tatum announced a third and final installment of the Magic Mike franchise. Line starts here! Let’s make 2022 a great year. It’s our choice.
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Mark McNease Mysteries Podcast #31: Reservation for Murder, Narrated by Sean Rhead (Chapters 21 – 30)
Welcome to December! Here is the third installment of the audiobook edition of Reservation for Murder: A Kyle Callahan Mystery, narrated by Sean Rhead. I’ll be putting out the entire book ten chapters a week, allowing listeners to enjoy this fabulous narrator, with a pinch of suspense while you wait for the next installment. You can listen to my interview with Sean about the making the audiobook HERE.
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Kapok Aging and Caregiver Resources: How to be a Caregiver for a Diabetic Patient – The Ultimate Guide
By Angelica Herrera Venson, DrPH, MPH
The following excerpt is reprinted with permission from Kapok Aging and Caregiver Resources.
Whether you’re a family member to someone with diabetes or are a direct care worker, being a caregiver for a diabetic patient can get overwhelming fast. You may be juggling multiple visits to specialists, constantly taking inventory and restocking a long list of diabetes care supplies, checking lab work results online, or trying to follow their doctor’s insulin therapy protocol.
Images from Kapok article You may have many questions. Can they eat that piece of pie? What do you do when they feel dizzy?
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Steve Hayes’s Tired Old Queen at the Movies Thanksgiving Review: Ethel Merman in ‘Call Me Madam’
From Steve Hayes, ‘Tired Old Queen at the Movies’
Ethel Merman has a field day transferring her Tony Award winning Broadway role to the screen in Irving Berlin’s movie musical CALL ME MADAM. With Donald O’Connor, Vera Ellen, George Sanders, Billy DeWolfe and Walter Slezak giving delightful support, it’s the perfect Thanksgiving treat! Happy Holidays from all of us at STEVE HAYES: Tired Old Queen at the Movies!
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The Weekly Readlines November 19
The Weekly Readlines (rhymes with headlines!) is a feature at LGBTSr.com, offering news you can use every Friday morning. Subscribe here for virtual delivery.
Want a weekly podcast edition of The Readlines next year? Take the simple Yes/No survey here!
BIG CUP: THE WEEK’S BIG STORIESFirst the good news: Confirming my deepest suspicions, President Biden is succeeding. So says conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, bucking the media’s trendy doom and gloom. If the house weren’t on fire, they’d have no house at all.
Following the spectacular passage of the infrastructure bill (GOP interparty death threats aside), House Democrats are poised to pass the Build Back Better Act as early as Friday, hoping Senators Manchin and Sinema don’t kill it for sport.
And to brighten everyone’s Thanksgiving, pardoned criminal Michael Flynn told a group of extremists that the United States must have one religion. Zero guesses as to which one it is.
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Mark McNease Mysteries Podcast #29: Reservation for Murder, Chapters 1 – 10 (Narrated by Sean Rhead)
I’m doing something new here: releasing the complete audiobook edition of Reservation for Murder: A Kyle Callahan Mystery, narrated by Sean Rhead. I’ll be putting out ten chapters a week for the next six weeks, allowing listeners to enjoy this fabulous narrator, with a pinch of suspense while you wait for the next installment.
I was inspired by a musical duo I saw recently. The Skivvies are led by Nick Cearley and Lauren Molina, two of the most entertaining and terrific musicians you’ll ever have the chance to enjoy, backed by a crack band and featured performers. They made their first album during the pandemic, and they made it available to stream for free. I purchased it (you have to if you want to download the files), but you can just put on your headphones and listen to every song gratis. I loved that. I loved their energy. And I loved the idea of offering my audiobook as a segmented podcast, start to finish, and entirely free. So … fasten your headphones and listen to the first ten chapters of Reservation for Murder. The following ten chapters will be out next week. You can listen to my interview with Sean about the making the audiobook HERE.
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Book Review: How Magicians Think: Misdirection, Deception, and Why Magic Matters, by Joshua Jay
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm Sez
“How Magicians Think: Misdirection, Deception, and Why Magic Matters” by Joshua Jay
c.2021, Workman $27.50 / higher in Canada
310 pagesPick a card. Any card.
Don’t show it to anyone. Just look at it, quick, and put it back in the deck anywhere at random. Now think about that card. Think about the number, the suit, how many symbols were on it, the color, the shape. Concentrate hard on the card you chose and then wonder – as in the new book “How Magicians Think” by Josuha Jay – what the magician is concentrating on.
How did he do that?
If you’re like most people, that’s your first reaction when you catch a magic act: how did the person with the tricks manage to fool you, right in front of your face? That question, says Joshua Jay, is the wrong “mindset.”
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The Weekly Readlines November 5
The Weekly Readlines (rhymes with headlines!) is a feature at LGBTSr.com, offering news you can use every Friday morning. Subscribe here for virtual delivery.
BIG CUP: THE WEEK’S TOP STORIESThe good news first: the Senate confirmed Judge Beth Robinson, the first openly LGBTQ woman to a lifetime seat on the U.S. Appeals Court. That’s all, folks.
Democrats could be heard gnashing their teeth at the defeat of Terry McAuliffe in Virginia – a “stunning upset” that was neither stunning nor particularly upsetting. A bloodletting followed as progressives and moderates knifed each other, while Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema continued shooting a movie destined to bomb with themselves as the stars.
Another week, another theocratic lurch in Texas, as a federal judge cleared the way for for-profit businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ people. Sign us Unsurprised. Bonus: Kinzinger/Cheney 2024? Could be intriguing.
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Ronni Sanlo’s This Day in LGBTQ History (October 29 November 4)
Ronni Sanlo’s This Day in LGBTQ History makes the past ever-present with daily rundowns of historic events and people.
Ronni Sanlo
THIS DAY in LGBTQ HISTORY
NOVEMBER 4 -
The Rocky Horror Skivvies Show Album Available for Streaming
We just saw The Skivvies at the Bucks County Playhouse last week for my birthday and LOVED THEM! The band is tight, the voices amazing, the energy infectious. And they’ve made their first album, recorded during the pandemic, available for streaming free. You can also purchase it, which I did to support them. We will absolutely see them again when we can.
The Skivvies are Lauren Molina and Nick Cearley, singer/actor/musicians performing stripped down arrangements of eclectic covers and eccentric originals. Not only is the music stripped down – cello, ukulele, glockenspiel, melodica – but the Skivvies literally strip down to their underwear to perform.
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The Weekly Readlines October 29
The Weekly Readlines (rhymes with headlines!) is a feature at LGBTSr.com, offering news you can use every Friday morning. Subscribe here for virtual delivery.
BIG CUP: THE WEEK’S TOP STORIESThe good news first: President Biden submitted his Build Back Better proposal, skinny edition, to the Democrats, pressuring them for full support. It looks like it may happen in time for a Halloween scare to the haters. “That’s not candy corn, Todd. That’s socialism!”
Information continues to come out about the attempted overthrow of the U.S. government on January 6, with clear indications that the former president was fully aware of the coup planning.
The U.S. issued its first non-binary ‘X’ gender passport. And solidifying the Democrats’ reputation as all but useless, paid family leave has been cut from the spending bill at Manchin’s insistence. Will there be any reason left to vote for them except they’re not Republicans?