• LGBTSR

    A July eBook Giveaway: ‘A House in the Woods’

    Mark, your editor here. I’ll be doing regular Kindle eBook giveaways throughout the coming months. It’s July, and that means it’s time for another one! This month I’ll be giving away 5 Kindle editions of my supernatural chiller, A House in the Woods. Winners will be randomly drawn on July 31.

    Just visit the announcement at my website and use the RafflePress entry form to enter, and remember to check your spam folder for the required confirmation! No muss, no fuss. Note: you must live in the U.S. to use these codes. Sorry, but for these giveaways I have to stick with the U.S. (Kindle rules). All entrants’ emails are kept confidential and you will NOT be added to my email list! But please consider subscribing HERE for occasional author updates and fabulous freebies.

    About A House in the Woods
    Country Living is Hell

    Laurel and Jeremy Calloway have longed for a new life away from the chaos and confusion of New York City. Driving along a country road in New Jersey with a young real estate agent in the back seat, they almost miss it: a small house in the woods for sale. Laurel immediately thinks this could be the house for them, the house of their dreams, where a simpler life awaits. But who are the mysterious old couple who’d put the house up for sale, having moved out months ago? Is caretaker Eileen more than a friendly neighbor? Who are the strange townspeople they meet, and is it the house of their dreams, or of their nightmares?

    Prefer to get your listen on? Enjoy the audiobook edition of A House in the Woods at Audible, Amazon and iTunes, narrated by Daniela Acitelli.

  • Book Reviews,  Books

    Book Review: 55, Underemployed, and Faking Normal: Your Guide to a Better Life, by Elizabeth White

    By Terri Schlichenmeyer
    The Bookworm


    55, Underemployed, and Faking Normal: Your Guide to a Better Life, by Elizabeth White
    c.2020 in paperback, Simon & Schuster
    $17.00 / $23.00 Canada 272 pages

    Your last regular paycheck has come and gone.

    That was awhile ago, back before you were downsized / laid off / reassigned right out of a job and you’re not sure what to do. Your savings are nearly gone, your retirement funds are next, and you’re too young to get Social Security. In 55, Underemployed, and Faking Normal” by Elizabeth White, you’ll see how to make this new life work.

  • LGBTSR,  What's Cooking

    What’s Cooking: Zucchini Bread from the Garden

    What’s Cooking is a feature at LGBTSr highlighting easy, delicious recipes. Have a recipe to share? Email us at: recipes @ lgbtsr.com


    Among my proudest achievements is our vegetable garden, built from scratch with raised beds, and fencing to keep out the deer and rabbits. We grow tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, peppers, herbs, and zucchini. So much zucchini! What do you do with it all? Well, one thing you can do is make zucchini bread and muffins. Here’s a recipe I’ve used from Allrecipes. It’s easy and delicious, and it looks like you worked a lot harder than you really did.

  • Savvy Senior

    The Savvy Senior: Simple Gadgets That Can Help Older Drivers

    By Jim Miller

    Dear Savvy Senior,

    Are there any specific auto gadgets you can recommend that can help senior drivers? Both of my parents are in there eighties and still pretty good drivers, but due to arthritis and age they’re very stiff, which causes them some driving problems.

    Researching Daughter

    Dear Researching,

    To help keep senior drivers safe and prolong their driving years, there’s a plethora of inexpensive, aftermarket vehicle adaptions you can purchase that can easily be added to your parent’s vehicles to help with many different needs. Here are some good options.

  • The Twist Podcast

    The Twist Podcast Pride Edition: Tumble in Tulsa, Branding Brouhahas, and Not My Heritage!


    Join co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose as we take a look a the continuing importance of Pride, the brouhaha over brand names, Republican chicanery, NASCAR, Tulsa’s coronapalooza, and saying good riddance to a heritage that isn’t ours (so there).

    Enjoy The Twist on LibsyniTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeart Radio, and TheTwistPodcast.com

    Copyright 2020 MadeMark Publishing

  • Columns,  Savvy Senior

    The Savvy Senior: What to Know About Advance Care Planning in the Age of Coronavirus

    By Jim Miller

    Dear Savvy Senior,

    All this horrible coronavirus carnage got me thinking about my own end-of-life decisions if I were to get sick. Can you recommend some good resources that can help me create a living will or advance directive, or other pertinent documents? I’ve put it off long enough.

    Almost 70 

    Dear Almost,

    Creating a living will (also known as an advance directive) is one of those things most people plan to do, but rarely get around to actually doing. Only about one-third of Americans currently have one. But the cold hard reality of the novel coronavirus may be changing that. Here’s what you should know along with some resources to help you create an advance directive.

  • LGBTSR

    Steve Hayes: Tired Old Queen a the Movies – Tea and Sympathy

    From Steve Hayes – Tired Old Queen at the Movies

    Watch TEA AND SYMPATHY now! https://amzn.to/3hJg4Dp  Deborah Kerr and John Kerr reprise their original Broadway roles as a boy struggling with his identity and the kindly wife of a teacher who helps him cope in Vincente Minnelli’s tender and beautiful screen adaptation of TEA AND SYMPATHY (’56). With a screenplay by the playwright, Robert Anderson, Leif Erickson, Darryl Hickman, Norma Crane and Edward Andrews round out the supporting cast of this tender and for its time, controversial drama. A classic of gay cinema.

  • Featured Books

    Featured Book: Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States, by Samantha Allen

    Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States
    By Samantha Allen
    Print Length: 321 pages
    Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (March 5, 2019)

    About Real Queer America

    Ten years ago, Samantha Allen was a suit-and-tie-wearing Mormon missionary. Now she’s a GLAAD Award-winning journalist happily married to another woman. A lot in her life has changed, but what hasn’t changed is her deep love of Red State America, and of queer people who stay in so-called “flyover country” rather than moving to the liberal coasts.

  • LGBTSR

    Supreme Court Rules in Favor of LGBTQ Workplace Protections

    In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court, voting 6-3, declared that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 includes LGBTQ people in prohibiting discrimination based on sex.

    From Politico:

    The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the key federal law prohibiting discrimination in the workplace protects gay, lesbian and transgender employees from being disciplined, fired or turned down for a job based on their sexual orientation.

    Two of the court’s Republican appointees, Neil Gorsuch and John Roberts, joined the court’s Democratic appointees to deliver the surprising 6-3 victory to LGBT advocates.

    Writing for the court’s majority, Gorsuch accepted arguments that the Civil Rights Act of 1964’s prohibition on sex discrimination in employment also effectively banned bias based on sexual orientation or gender identity, even though few if any members of Congress thought they were doing that at the time.

  • The Twist Podcast

    The Twist Podcast #126: Mark Returns to Co-Host, TV and Food Trends, Lockdown Blues, and America in the Mirror

    Join co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose as Mark returned to co-host duties. We talk TV and food trends, end of the lockdown, and America in the mirror.

    Enjoy The Twist on LibsyniTunesSoundCloud, Stitcher, Spotify, and TheTwistPodcast.com

    Copyright 2019 MadeMark Publishing

  • LGBTSR

    7 Myths About Face Masks (AARP)

    From the folks at AARP:

    Myth 1: You don’t need to wear a face mask if you don’t feel sick.

    This was the prevailing advice at the beginning of the pandemic, but not anymore. Experts have learned more about the coronavirus and how it spreads, and now the recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is that everyone — including people who feel perfectly healthy — should wear a face covering in public settings where it may be difficult to maintain at least 6 feet of space from other people. Think: grocery stores, pharmacies, retail shops, hair salons, crowded parks and more.

    The reason? It’s an added layer of protection. The virus is thought to spread easily between people who are in close contact with one another by respiratory droplets produced when an infected person talks, coughs or sneezes. And because some infected people might be presymptomatic or even asymptomatic, and as such are at risk of unknowingly spreading the virus to others, a face mask provides “an extra layer to help prevent the respiratory droplets from traveling in the air and onto other people,” the CDC says.

    People who feel sick should stay home and not venture out in public. That said, they should wear a face mask when interacting with family members or caregivers at home.

    Read all 7 at AARP!