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The Twist Podcast #217: Back from Boston, Madonna Flashbacks, Grocery Therapy, and a New Guest Listicle!
Join co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose we catch up after Mark’s whirlwind trip to Boston, hear Rick’s headlines and headaches, and enjoy a new guest listicle from the University of Iowa’s Lauren Swanson.
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‘Rough and Tumble: A Dystopian Love Tragedy’ Now Available as an Audiobook from WondervoxAI / MadeMark Publishing
So much to say, so little time to say it right now: My newest venture is WondervoxAI, creating AI-narrated audio for myself and potential clients. Blog posts? Fiction? Non-fiction? Anything you want narrated and turned into an audio file, I’m your source. Affordable, precise, and determined. I can even clone your own voice!
This is in the very (very) early stages, so stay tuned. For now, I’ve got my extended short story, Rough and Tumble: A Dystopian Love Tragedy, available as an audiobook at my Payhip storefront. It’s just $3.99. Purchase it and immediately get your own MP3 file to enjoy at your leisure. Expect much more from this brave new frontier. You can listen to a sample HERE. The technology is amazing and exciting.
“Rough and Tumble were not their names by birth.” Boy meets boy at the end of civilization in this extended short story. The year is distant, the reality of those living appears dark and harsh. Among them, surviving by wit and easy violence, are Rough and Tumble, two young men whose lives became entwined so long ago neither of them remembers exactly when, only that it was love at first sight. Now, as Rough imagines an escape from the Slopes, the area they live and expect to die in, he yearns to take Tumble with him. But is it possible? Does Tumble want to go across the murky water, too, or are dreams for the foolish and the dying? Join them as they go on a last nightly prowl, looking for loot and any way out.
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Savvy Senior: How to Protect Seniors from Scam Calls
Dear Savvy Senior,
What tools can you recommend to help protect trusting seniors from scam calls? My 74-year-old mother gets tons of unwanted telemarketing and robocalls on her cell and home phone and has been duped out of hundreds of dollars.
Frustrated Daughter
Dear Frustrated,
It’s a great question! Scammers are always looking for new ways to dupe people out of money, and in the U.S., phone calls remain the primary way swindlers hook older victims.
The Federal Trade Commission recently found that 24 percent of adults over age 60 who reported losing money to a scam in 2021 said it started with a phone call – the largest percentage of any method, including email, text and mail.
To help protect your mom from the onslaught of robocall scams, telemarketing and spam calls, here are some tips and tools you can help her employ.
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Q Audiobooks: I’m So (Not) Over You, by Kosoko Jackson, Narrated by Timothy Bell Reese
I’m So (Not) Over You
By: Kosoko Jackson
Narrated by: Timothy Bell Reese
Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
4.5 out of 5 stars (50 ratings)“Shine[s] with a beautiful, blooming sense of wonder.”—New York Times Book Review
A chance to rewrite their ending is worth the risk in this swoony romantic comedy from Kosoko Jackson.
It’s been months since aspiring journalist Kian Andrews has heard from his ex-boyfriend, Hudson Rivers, but an urgent text has them meeting at a café. Maybe Hudson wants to profusely apologize for the breakup. Or confess his undying love. . . But no, Hudson has a favor to ask—he wants Kian to pretend to be his boyfriend while his parents are in town, and Kian reluctantly agrees.
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Savvy Senior: How to Protect Seniors from Scam Calls
Dear Savvy Senior,
What tools can you recommend to help protect trusting seniors from scam calls? My 74-year-old mother gets tons of unwanted telemarketing and robocalls on her cell and home phone and has been duped out of hundreds of dollars.
Frustrated Daughter
Dear Frustrated,
It’s a great question! Scammers are always looking for new ways to dupe people out of money, and in the U.S., phone calls remain the primary way swindlers hook older victims.
The Federal Trade Commission recently found that 24 percent of adults over age 60 who reported losing money to a scam in 2021 said it started with a phone call – the largest percentage of any method, including email, text and mail.
To help protect your mom from the onslaught of robocall scams, telemarketing and spam calls, here are some tips and tools you can help her employ.
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Hotel Review: Boston’s Verb Hotel Gets 4.5 Fresh Towels
Prefer to listen? Just click for the audio version.
Hotel reviews are based on a Fresh Towel rating. Five means a top destination, one means check in at your peril.
Welcome to the first hotel review. It’s being added to my restaurant reviews (1-5 Yums), and my general travel reviews and blog posts.
Like a lot of people, we’ve been traveling a lot since the removal of pandemic restrictions. We’ve been to Delaware, Atlantic City, and we’ll be heading to California and Las Vegas soon, as well as taking a cruise to Canada in October that arrives back in Bayonne, NJ, on my birthday!
I was especially prompted to kick these off because we’ve come to Boston to visit one of Frank’s oldest friends (who takes the ferry to Provincetown every year in August when we head their for our annual time share). Frank booked us into The Verb Hotel, and I was wowed!
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Hotel Review: Boston’s Verb Hotel Gets 4.5 Fresh Towels
Prefer to listen? Just click and enjoy.
Hotel reviews are based on a Fresh Towel rating. Five means a top destination, one means check in at your peril.
Welcome to the first hotel review. It’s being added to my restaurant reviews (1-5 Yums), and my general travel reviews and blog posts.
Like a lot of people, we’ve been traveling a lot since the removal of pandemic restrictions. We’ve been to Delaware, Atlantic City, and we’ll be heading to California and Las Vegas soon, as well as taking a cruise to Canada in October that arrives back in Bayonne, NJ, on my birthday!
I was especially prompted to kick these off because we’ve come to Boston to visit one of Frank’s oldest friends (who takes the ferry to Provincetown every year in August when we head their for our annual time share). Frank booked us into The Verb Hotel, and I was wowed!
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Mark McNease Mysteries Podcast #48: Final Audition – A Marshall James Thriller, Narrated by AI (3 Chapter Sample)
Just … wow. I had no intention of using AI to narrate my writing, but I tried it with ElevenLabs, and I love it. I’ll be able to use this for my blog posts, my fiction and non-fiction writing, you name it. Will it replace working narrators? I hope not. But I would otherwise have narrated this myself. It saves an enormous amount of time, and the technology is stunning. The glitches are very few, and only with tone and emphasis, not on the words themselves. So … enjoy this three-chapter sample of Final Audition: A Marshall James Thriller, narrated by the robot Josh.
About Final Audition: A Marshall James Thriller
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Mark McNease Mysteries Podcast #48: Final Audition – A Marshall James Thriller, Narrated by AI (3 Chapter Sample)
Just … wow. I had no intention of using AI to narrate my writing, but I tried it with ElevenLabs, and I love it. I’ll be able to use this for my blog posts, my fiction and non-fiction writing, you name it. Will it replace working narrators? I hope not. But I would otherwise have narrated this myself. It saves an enormous amount of time, and the technology is stunning. The glitches are very few, and only with tone and emphasis, not on the words themselves. So … enjoy this three-chapter sample of Final Audition: A Marshall James Thriller, narrated by the robot Josh.
About Final Audition: A Marshall James Thriller
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Dreamshaping Podcast #19: My Robot’s Name is Josh (Adventures in AI Narration)
This is my first adventure in AI, using a service called ElevenLabs voice synthesis. It’s frankly amazing, and it opens up a lot of new opportunities for me as a creator. Podcasts, blog posts, short stories, anything I wanted to have narrated can now be offered as audio. It’s very exciting, and I’m looking forward to new frontiers as a writer and podcaster.
This first one is called ‘When You’re Older, Son,’ and the Slippage of Time.’ As with all things Dreamshaping, it’s a look at the human experience and how we create and experience the ultimate dream of our lives.
‘When You’re Older, Son’ and the Slippage of Time
Are human beings the only animals aware of time passing? Do cats know they’re getting old? Do fish ever wish they’d swum in this direction instead of that one? Is a tree concerned at all with the number of years it has stood rooted in one spot?
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Dreamshaping Podcast #19: My Robot’s Name is Josh (Adventures in AI Narration)
This is my first adventure in AI, using a service called ElevenLabs voice synthesis. It’s frankly amazing, and it opens up a lot of new opportunities for me as a creator. Podcasts, blog posts, short stories, anything I wanted to have narrated can now be offered as audio. It’s very exciting, and I’m looking forward to new frontiers as a writer and podcaster.
This first one is called ‘When You’re Older, Son,’ and the Slippage of Time.’ As with all things Dreamshaping, it’s a look at the human experience and how we create and experience the ultimate dream of our lives.
‘When You’re Older, Son’ and the Slippage of Time
Are human beings the only animals aware of time passing? Do cats know they’re getting old? Do fish ever wish they’d swum in this direction instead of that one? Is a tree concerned at all with the number of years it has stood rooted in one spot?
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The Twist Podcast #216: Headlines and Horse Feathers, Brad Shreve Joins the Chat Room, and a New Guest Listicle!
Join co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose as we scan the headlines, introduce our new Chat Room feature with our first chatterbox, author and podcaster Brad Shreve, and treat listeners to a listicle from Allison DeMarcus on the best things about sharing your life with a country musician.