New Year, New Look for My Payhip Storefront!
New year, new look for my Payhip storefront! Buy everything direct and save, while you support your favorite authors and avoid the Amazon monster.One Time Donation/Lifetime Subscription to Mark McNease On Topic Substack – $25!
As subscribers to my Mark McNease On Topic Substack know, I’ve eliminated paid and renewing subscriptions. Everyone gets everything, ’cause that’s the kind of provocateur I am. You can, however, donate and get a lifetime subscription for just $25. It’s a subscription! It’s a donation! It’s a tip jar! You decide.
If you haven’t subscribed yet, this is a great way to do it. Or just sign up at MarkMAMcNease.substack.com. We don’t twist arms at the Tree House, we just imply.
Let’s roar into 2025 with heads high, open hearts, and curious minds. – Mark
Workshop Schedule Starting in January
Workshops are currently 2 hours via Zoom unless marked ‘in person’
All times are eastern (New Jersey) – 2 Hours
Register at the links belowNEW FOR 2025!
IN-PERSON WORKSHOPS IN LAMBERTVILLE
NEW HOPE ADULT WRITERS GROUP
CLINTON ADULT WRITERS GROUPFRIDAY FEBRUARY 7
Guided Autobiography 2-Hour Complimentary Introduction (free)
9:00 am – 11:00 am
Location: Soupcon at Bucks on Bridge
25 Bridge Street, Lambertville, NJ
Please specify the workshop or group in your subject line!
RSVP (LIMIT 8)EVERY 2ND AND 4TH TUESDAY
Adult Writers Group
6:00 – 7:00 pm
Location: New Hope Free Library
93 W. Ferry Street, New Hope, PA
Please specify the workshop or group in your subject line!
RSVP – JANUARY MEETINGS ARE 1/7 AND 1/28 Space is limitedWEDNSDAY JANUARY 29
Last Wednesday of every month
Adult Writers Group
6:00 – 7:00 pm
65 Halstead St, Clinton, Clinton, NJ
Please specify the workshop or group in your subject line!
RSVPFree eBook For New Subscribers: One Thing or Another: Life, Aging, and the Absurdities Of It All
CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE AND DOWNLOAD
One Thing or Another is a collection of humor columns that take a look at life, aging, and the absurdities of it all. From our culture’s refusal to use the word ‘old,’ to the sometimes comical consequences of aging in body and mind, if not always in spirit. Collected from the author’s personal columns, these short essays will make you chuckle, recognize yourself, and occasionally grimace at the not-always-funny price we pay for simply staying alive.
A Smashing Smashwords Year End Sale and Giveaway!
Read All My eBooks Free!
Santa’s at the door! Merry Christmas, everyone, happy holidays. Enjoy some freebies and deep discounts at the Smashwords Year End Sale!
All of my ebooks – you heard that right, all of them – are available for free download at Smashwords from December 12 – January 1. That includes:
6 Kyle Callahan Mysteries
3 Marshall James Thrillers
2 Maggie Dahl MysteriesCan you say “up all night?” It will take a lot of those sleepless evenings to get through all these page-turners.
AND there are lots more, from dozens of terrific authors offering their books for free or at deep discounts.
Your Write Path Podcast: An Interview with David Bushman, MWA-NY Board Member and True Crime Specialist
This interview can also be found at the Mystery Writers of America-New York website.
Fasten your headphones for an audio interview with David Bushman, MWA-NY Board Member and true crime specialist. David is the author of five books, including, Murder at Teal’s Pond: Hazel Drew and the Mystery That Inspired Twin Peaks (2022), Conversations with Mark Frost (2020), Forget It, Jake, It’s Schenectady, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About Sunnydale’s Slayer of Vampires Demons and Other Forces of Darkness. David is also the the editor of a series of Doctor Who essay books: The Companions of and Villains of Doctor Who (2022, 2024).
David is a former television curator at The Paley Center for Media and TV editor at Variety. He’s a cofounder and copresident of Fayetteville Mafia Press and Tucker DS Press. He lives in NYC with his wife, two daughters, and strangely recalcitrant dog, who is named after Agent Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks.
Triple Header: 3 Workshops in March – Fiction Writing Essentials, Character Creation, and Self-Publishing with Kindle Direct Publishing
Three workshop intensives in one package: Fiction Writing Essentials, followed by Character Creation, and concluding with Self-Publishing with KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing. Each of these is a separate workshop, being offered together for three Mondays in March – and at a savings! Join Mark and the other participants to learn the essentials of writing fiction, how to create characters who will step off your mind onto the page, and how to publish your work yourself as an independent author.
You can see workshop descriptions at YourWritePath.com, address any questions to YourWritePath AT Outlook. com.
WHEN: 3 Mondays in March (3, 10, 17)
TIME: 10:00 am – 12:00 pm eastern
VIA ZOOM
REGISTER HERE ($100)Another Happy Book Client: A Normal American Life, by Robert Montagnese
Did I mention I love my job? Another client satisfied!
A Normal American Life, by Robert Montagnese
If the currency of life is time, then the currency of truly living is making decisions.
Meet Katie and Claire, two young girls living in the Midwest who are about to graduate high school. On that one warm Spring Day, they decide to skip classes to go to the lake; a rumor spreads not based on any facts but rather a perception. It is the end of innocence as previously embraced and the start of truly living, and the clock ticks. There is an enormous world to discover beyond small-town people and their gossip.
A Normal American Life is a bar set high by how deeply you can go within to define yourself and live by those standards. It is a story about people using words to demonize and promote their own skewed beliefs. It’s also a tale about small-town traditions and beliefs, both good and bad. The characters are universal, and they all come from Elkhart, Indiana. Welcome to this America, the land of the free, if you look, talk, and live your life like a “normal” American.
The author, Robert Montagnese, brings a unique perspective to this narrative. Growing up in a small town in Connecticut, he remembers the turbulent late 1960s and the rapid changes of the 1970s. A bell-bottom boy in platform shoes, he ventured out to explore the world, learning quickly that what sometimes feels normal may not be normal to others.
This is Robert’s 4th novel. His career in beauty marketing provided a deeper insight into women and their worth, which is the heart of this new novel. Robert moved to NYC to start his career as an OR Nurse at New York Hospital and completed it as the Global Brand Director for L’Oréal years later. Along the way, his interest in writing became a reality with his first collection of short stories about influential women in his life, Lucky 7. Praise for Lucky 7 encouraged him to continue with a new-found passion for storytelling, leading to his latest, A Normal American Life. Robert happily resides in NYC with his partner John, of 30-plus years, and a new puppy, Patrick II.