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.

It’s great to chat again with friend and prolific author Dave Hughes, founder of RetireFabulously, and soon-to-be author of four fabulous books in his new adult gay series. I’ve known Dave for quite a few years now, and had the pleasure of sharing his articles on retirement at my own LGBTSr.com website. He’s since moved into fiction writing, and he’s got a new one coming out in just a few days. Listen in as we talk about his life, his writing, and his new release, If I Seem Quiet …

About Dave Hughes

Dave Hughes has written three gay fiction novels, Maybe Next Year, Instant Adult, and Open Books, Closed Sets. His next novel, If I Seem Quiet…, will be released on November 17, 2023. These are the first four books in a series of six. 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… .

Welcome to the re-launch of the One Thing or Another Podcast. Today I spoke with author Bruce W. Bishop about his life and writing. I had the pleasure of meeting Bruce in Halifax recently, and I’ve just started reading the third book in his trilogy.

Here’s a fun video trailer I did for the Bruce W. Bishop interview

About Bruce W. Bishop

We’ve had out beloved cats, Wilma and Peanut, for over three years now. Entering a new year seemed like a good time to offer up this interview with someone who helped us a great deal when we first brought these adorable adult cats into our home. – Mark

This week’s interview sheds light on an animal many of us share our lives with and many others consider mysterious: the cat. Having recently adopted a new one named Wilma who came from a hoarder situation, I found myself in need of help and was fortunate enough to be put in touch with Molly DeVoss. The results have been amazing.

After speaking and emailing with Molly about our new cat’s issues and how to resolve them, I had the pleasure of interviewing her. She’s as knowledgeable and generous with her time and expertise as she is kind and outgoing, and I know listeners will get as much from this chat with Molly as I did.

Be sure to check out her organization, Cat Behavior Solutions (catbehaviorsolutions.org), and consider making a donation when you stop by.

It’s that time again! Here’s a fun conversation from last year with author and Halloween expert Lisa Morton.

October is my favorite month, bringing with it two annual events: my birthday, and Halloween. It’s been a double dose of goodness all my life, and this year is no exception, despite the stresses the coronavirus has put on us all. Halloween is a good opportunity to live a semi-normal life and scare up some fun. Listen in as I chat with author Lisa Morton about her writing, her life, and her experience as a bonafide Halloween expert.

About Lisa Morton

Lisa Morton is a screenwriter, author of non-fiction books, and award-winning prose writer whose work was described by the American Library Association’s Readers’ Advisory Guide to Horror as “consistently dark, unsettling, and frightening”.  She is the author of four novels and 150 short stories, a six-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award®, and a world-class Halloween expert. She co-edited (with Leslie S. Klinger) the anthology Weird Women: Classic Supernatural Fiction by Groundbreaking Female Writers 1852-1923; forthcoming in 2020 is Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances. She is a six-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award®, a recipient of the Black Quill Award, and winner of the 2012 Grand Prize from the Halloween Book Festival. A life long Californian, she lives in Los Angeles.

Coming up on the One Thing or Another Podcast

Sociologist Hilary Levey Friedman discusses the history of beauty pageants in America and her new book, Here She Is

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Comments or questions? You can reach me at Mark @ OneThingOrAnotherPodcast. com