One of the pleasures of publishing this website is all the new friends I’ve made over the last 12 years. One of the more recent ones is Mark Goldstein, host of the Where Do Gays Retire? podcast, and founder of the Where Do Gays Retire? Facebook page (with its over 14,000 members!). I had a chance to catch up with Mark on a hot summer day, about his life, his ventures, and his future. (You can hear us on his podcast talking about Lambertville, NJ, HERE.)

About Mark Goldstein

Mark grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and lived in Queens, NY, Westchester County, NY, and Stamford Connecticut before moving to the Tampa Bay area in Florida.  Soon after moving to Florida,  Mark and his husband Peter realized that retiring in Florida wasn’t a great choice. This is when Mark started a Facebook group called “Where Do Gays Retire.”

It took a few years for the group to gain momentum, and then suddenly there was an explosion of growth. From a handful of members, to today’s 12,300+ membership, the group continues to grow and provide the LGBTQ+ community with information on where to retire globally.

Mark started Zoom sessions with people from all over the world who are living in LGBTQ+ desirable locations to educate others.

His latest project was to expand on the Zoom idea to gain a larger audience. The Where Do Gays Retire Podcast was born.

I had the pleasure of chatting with author Laury Egan, whose moist recent book, Jack & I, just released in May. Laury sets some of her books in locations I’m very familiar with here on the border of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Listen in as we talk about her extensive career, her life these days, and her passion for writing novels.

About Laury Egan

Laury A. Egan is the author of thirteen books of fiction: The Black Leopard’s Kiss & The Writer Remembers, The Psychologist’s Shadow; The Firefly; Once, Upon an Island; Wave in D Minor; Doublecrossed; Turnabout; The Swimmer; The Ungodly Hour; A Bittersweet Tale; Fabulous! An Opera Buffa; The Outcast Oracle (listed as a Kirkus Reviews “Best Book of 2013”); and Jenny Kidd, with one title forthcoming: Jack & I. Her stories have been collected in Fog and Other Stories, and her short fiction and poems have appeared in 85 literary journals and in multiple anthologies. Two full-length poetry volumes, Snow, Shadow, a Stranger and Beneath the Lion’s Paw, were issued in limited edition, as were two chapbooks, Presence & Absence and The Sea & Beyond. Laury is also a fine arts photographer, a former book designer, and a reviewer for The New York Journal of Books. She lives on the northern coast of New Jersey.

I knew Wendy when we both worked at the same place several years ago in New Hope, PA. I’d often wondered where she went and what she was up to. And now I know! She was generous enough to share her past, present and future with us, and I’m delighted to have her as a guest on the podcast. – Mark/Editor

About Wendy Cole

Knowing who you are, and not BEING who you are: this is the starting point of every Transitional situation. You KNOW who you truly are, in every aspect, but the outside is what matters. That is what people see. Taking that first transitional step is TERRIFYING. It’s the stress: stress of the journey, stress of the mental weight, stress of worrying about the outside world… The physical transition is the easiest part; it’s getting through the mental transition that holds us back.

What goes around comes around … and it’s another great interview with author, columnist, and renaissance man Dave Hughes. We’ve been friends for nearly a decade, and I’ve taken a lot of inspiration from Dave’s post-corporate-job life (I try not to use the word ‘retirement,’ since it needs to be retired!). Join me in a chat with Dave about two of his big ventures: RetireFabulously.com, and his more recent headlong dive into fiction with his ‘Gay Tales for the New Millennium‘ series, with its fifth book, Karma Train from Kansas, having just pulled into the station.

About Dave Hughes

Dave Hughes has written four gay fiction novels, Maybe Next Year; Instant Adult; Open Books, Closed Sets; and If I Seem Quiet…. These are the first four books in a series of six called Gay Tales for the New Millennium. His first short story, Cruise Virgins, is available free to subscribers of his newsletter. Chronologically, it fits between Open Books, Closed Sets and If I Seem Quiet… .

I’m delighted to chat with author and fellow Mystery Writers of America (NY) board member Nev March. After a successful business career, Nev picked up her passion where she’d left off: writing superb historical fiction steeped in the sounds, sights and sensations of old Bombay. Join us for a conversation about her books, her writing, and her plans for the future.

About Nev March

Author Nev March is the first Indian-born writer to win Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America’s Award for Best First Crime Fiction. Her debut novel Murder in Old Bombay was an Edgar and Anthony finalist.

After a long career in business analysis, in 2015 Nev returned to her passion, writing fiction and now teaches fun courses on creative writing at Rutgers University, Osher Institute. A Parsee Zoroastrian herself, she lives in New Jersey with her family. She volunteers with local non profit Shine and Inspire and the Zoroastrian Association of Greater New York, ZAGNY. She is President of the NY chapter board of the Mystery Writers of America. She also writes screenplays for TV and film.

Nev’s books deal with issues of identity, race and moral boundaries. Her sequel, Peril at the Exposition is set at the 1893 World’s Fair, during a time of conflict that planted the seeds of today’s red-blue political divide. In Captain Jim and Lady Diana’s third adventure The Spanish Diplomat’s Secret they face a strange, otherworldly foe who causes Jim to question the nature of justice.

Nev is presently writing book #4: Diana’s brother Adi is accused of murder! Nothing less would drive Captain Jim and Diana back to the rigid social hierarchy of Bombay.

Nev is seeking representation from an agency a strong screen rights team and connections to film/TV production

Comments, questions or suggestions? Contact Mark AT YourWritePath.com

It doesn’t get any more comfortable than interviewing my friend and longtime collaborator Rick Rose. Rick is the co-host of our weekly Twist Podcast. He’s a Dane County (WI) commissioner, man-about-town in Madison, activist, mentor, and so much more. We talk about life in what was once called retirement, but can only be described as our most active and creative years yet! Fasten your headphones for this one.

COMING UP ON THE PODCAST:

Mark Goldstein, host of the ‘Where Do Gays Retires?’ podcast
Nev March, author and board president for the Mystery Writers of America-NY Chapter
Ronni Sanlo and Kelly Ward, hosts of the LGBTQ History Alive podcast

Comments, suggestions, encouragement welcome! We’re listening.

It’s a real treat to talk to Steve Dolainski, my friend of many years now, who introduced me to my new path as a workshop and class facilitator! I met Steve over a decade ago. We co-edited and published an anthology of LGBTQ writers over 50, including several who have become my friends. Outer Voices Inner Lives was a Lambda Literary Award finalist for anthology, and includes a foreword by the late, great, Patricia Nell Warren.

Fast forward ten years, and I finally had the pleasure of meeting Steve in person on a trip to California. He told me he’d become a certified Guided Autobiography instructor and was conducting classes with the LGBTQ Center in L.A. I was hooked! I’m certified myself now too, and looking forward to my third act (as Jane Fonda calls life after 65), offering workshops and classes in Guided Autobiography and fiction writing (YourWritePath.com). Listen to this short interview with Steve where he talks about GAB (as we call it), making new roads to travel, and contemplating the ones we’ve already come on!

COMING UP ON THE PODCAST:

Rick Rose, Dane County Commissioner (Madison, WI), activist, podcast co-host
Mark Goldstein, host of the ‘Where Do Gays Retires?’ podcast
Nev March, author and board president for the Mystery Writers of America-NY Chapter
Ronni Sanlo and Kelly Ward, hosts of the LGBTQ History Alive podcast

Comments, suggestions, encouragement welcome! We’re listening.

It’s back! The One Thing or Another Podcast, reimagined, reemerged, and reinvigorated with a focus on “life, aging, and the absurdities of it all.” Listen in to this recent chat with Robert Kesten, Executive Director of the Stonewall National Museum, Archives, and Library in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. We talk about the need to preserve our history, the mission of the Stonewall Museum, and how we can sustain an awareness of our past and present in a way that informs our future.

About Robert Kesten

Robert Kesten (he/him/his) has worked globally promoting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and furthering democracy. This work has taken many forms including writing and producing an award winning documentary on learning about the Holocaust at the Concentration Camps in Poland, Working on the Ghanaian Constitution, coordinating and producing events leading to Ukrainian independence, producing events for the first AIDS day treatment center in the nation, pushing for the decriminalization of homosexuality in Ukraine (the first Soviet Republic to do so).

Kesten comes to Stonewall National Museum and Archives with national and international experience, taking ideas and bringing them to life. This position brings full circle his active engagement in the LGBTQ+ community and his commitment to using history as a tool to make sense and fashion a response to today and tomorrow.

Fasten your headphones for a conversation with Professor Lucas Hilderbrand, whose latest book, The Bars Are Ours, offers a meticulously researched, scholarly and always engaging look at the history of gay bars and their place in queer culture over the decades. We talk about his life, his career, and his dedication to a subject that is as significant as ever.

About Lucas Hilderbrand 

Lucas Hilderbrand is Professor of Film and Media Studies at the University of California, Irvine, and author of Inherent Vice: Bootleg Histories of Videotape and Copyright, also published by Duke University Press, and Paris Is Burning: A Queer Film Classic.

Hilderbrand lives in Los Angeles and teaches film and media, visual, and queer studies at the University of California, Irvine. He has written on the pleasures and politics of video bootlegging, the mediations of queer memory, and the ambiguities of experimental documentary.

Listen in as I chat with Robert Kesten, Executive Director of the Stonewall National Museum, Archives, and Library in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. We talk about the need to preserve our history, the mission of the Stonewall Museum, and how we can sustain an awareness of our past and present in a way that informs our future.

About Robert Kesten

Robert Kesten (he/him/his) has worked globally promoting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and furthering democracy. This work has taken many forms including writing and producing an award winning documentary on learning about the Holocaust at the Concentration Camps in Poland, Working on the Ghanaian Constitution, coordinating and producing events leading to Ukrainian independence, producing events for the first AIDS day treatment center in the nation, pushing for the decriminalization of homosexuality in Ukraine (the first Soviet Republic to do so).

Kesten comes to Stonewall National Museum and Archives with national and international experience, taking ideas and bringing them to life. This position brings full circle his active engagement in the LGBTQ+ community and his commitment to using history as a tool to make sense and fashion a response to today and tomorrow.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Carlos Guillermo Smith, Senior Policy Advisor for Equality Florida. Carlos was also a member of the Florida legislature for six years (D), and has extensive experience as an advocate for LGBTQ people in a state where anti-LGBTQ legislation has taken hold. I spoke with Carlos about life on the ground for LGBTQ people, how the laws are shaping reality for us and our allies, and what is being done to resist the forces working against us. Fasten your headphones for an engrossing conversation.

About Carlos Guillermo Smith

A graduate of the University of Central Florida, Carlos Guillermo Smith first joined Equality Florida in 2011 as a public policy fellow and returned in early 2015 as government affairs manager. Carlos previously served in the Florida House of Representatives from 2011-2012 as the chief of staff to former Democratic Representative Scott Randolph as well as one of Florida’s first openly gay state representatives Joe Saunders from 2012-2014. A twice-elected former chairman of the Orange County Democratic Party himself and longtime LGBT progressive activist, Carlos made history in November 2016 when he was elected to the Florida House as our state’s first openly LGBT Latino lawmaker. [Equality Florida]

We can all use some comic relief today, as well as some wisdom. Enjoy this ‘best of’ from the podcast archives, with legendary comic and activist Robin Tyler. We talk about Robin’s life and career, and get her take on the state of the country.

About Robin Tyler

Robin Tyler is the first lesbian or gay comic to come out on national television, a feminist and pioneer in the grassroots struggle for LGBTQ civil rights and marriage equality in the U.S., and a producer.

She emceed and produced the main stage at three marches on Washington for LGBTQ rights, including the historic first National March On Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1979. Tyler coined the phrase “We are everywhere” as a rallying cry for the LGBTQ community.