• 6 Questions / Interviews,  LGBTSR

    The Return of the ‘6 Questions’ Interviews! Author Bruce W. Bishop

    This interview is shared from LGBTSr.com.

    By Mark McNease

    Welcome back to the 6 Questions interviews! I’ll be asking 6 questions of a wide variety of interviewees, from authors and artists, to cheesemakers and podcasters. This week, we bring them back with a bang, interviewing author Bruce W. Bishop. I just finished the second book in his series, Uncommon Sons, and loved it. But I’ll let Bruce tell you all about the book and himself in his own words. – Mark

    A little about you: Who, what, where? What was it like being a travel and guidebook author, then switching to novelist? Are you planning to do both?

    I’m a Canadian writer from the east coast of the country who lives in the province of Nova Scotia. I was born and raised in a small town here, and after university, moved to the country’s biggest city, Toronto. I stayed there for 25 years and then returned to Nova Scotia.

  • 6 Questions,  6 Questions / Interviews

    From the Archives: 6 Questions for Author Paula Martinac


    By Mark McNease

    Eight years of LGBTSr have given me a rich archive of interviews, reviews, podcasts and content. Here’s a ‘6 Questions’ interview from 2018 with author Paula Martinac. Her most recent novel, Clio Rising, was released by Bywater Books in April, 2019.

    Paula Martinac

    I recently had the pleasure of interviewing author Paula Martinac. Her latest novel, The Ada Decades, tells the story of Ada Shook, a librarian who begins the book as a child discovering a shocking postcard image in her father’s possession, and ends seven decades later as a reluctant witness to history. Told in eleven interconnected stories, the novel examines issues of race, class, and the slow climb toward LGBT equality in a pre-Stonewall world.

    See Paula’s in-depth answers to ‘6 Questions’ below, and mark your calendars: I’ll be chatting with Paula on a podcast sometime in the next month or two. I’m excited to continue our conversation. For now …

  • 6 Questions,  6 Questions / Interviews

    6 (More) Questions for Dave Hughes of RetireFabulously.com

    By Mark McNease

    I’ve been a fan of Dave Hughes and his RetireFabulously.com website for the past five years. I’ve been raving about his columns and had the privilege of helping edit his two books . We both recently enjoyed cruises with our husbands, and I thought it was a good time to ask him some more questions about living in retirement, some of the realities of traveling as a retiree, and a general update. (Note: I’ll be turning 60 this month and hope to retire myself at 62.)

    Dave, thanks for taking the time to answer more questions. You’ve been retired a while now and more active than ever. We both just finished cruises, and have fabulous, but different, experiences with this form of vacation. Let’s start there …

    MM: I know people who love cruising and people who would rather walk on burning coals than be on a ship. What would you tell someone who’s never cruised to sell them on doing it?

    DH: Cruises aren’t for everybody. I won’t pretend that they are. But some people harbor misconceptions about what cruises are really like. There are plenty of lesbian and gay people who harbor misconceptions about what lesbian or gay cruises are like.

    This slideshow requires JavaScript.

    Slideshow from Dave and Jeff’s Cruise

  • 6 Questions / Interviews

    6 Questions for Ronni Sanlo, Ed.D

    Ronni Sanlo, Ed.D

    By Mark McNease

    I met Ronni Sanlo a few years ago—one of the remarkable people I’ve had the pleasure of encountering by doing LGBTSr the past seven years. She’s an educator, publisher, historian, resister, playwright, and is currently involved with the Joy Silver campaign for the California Senate.

    Ronni is a well-known keynote speaker and workshop presenter at colleges and universities around the country. Her focus is LGBT history, learning outcomes, strategic planning, and LGBT center development. Ronni speaks not only from her perspective as a higher education/student affairs professor, LGBT center director, dean of students, and faculty in residence, but also from her personal life experiences.

  • 6 Questions / Interviews,  Interviews

    6 Questions for Author Jean Ryan

    By Mark McNease

    This interview originally appeared at LGBTSR.org, February, 2015

    I’ve recently had the pleasure of getting to know Jean Ryan, a gifted writer and generous spirit whose story, Manatee Gardens, opens the collection Outer Voices Inner Lives. Jean has since kept up a correspondence with me and had several of her blog posts featured here at lgbtSr. Her collection, Survival Skills (Ashland Creek Press) is available for anyone interested in superb writing and stories with deep insight into the human experience. I couldn’t think of anyone better for a 6 Questions feature. – Mark/Editor

    MM: It’s been really good to get to know you more since we “met” through the Outer Voices Inner Lives collection. Can you tell readers a little about Jean Ryan? Native Vermonter, now in Napa, CA …