Uncorking a Story

Nick Jonsson is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of one of Asia’s premiere networking organizations. He built a caring community that provides hundreds of executives a safe haven to share their challenges, and receive support and learn from each other. He joined me on Uncorking a Story to talk about his personal story and book entitled Executive Loneliness: The 5 Pathways to Overcoming Isolati...

Today, we are doing something a little different on Uncorking a Story. It’s a new year and, for our first episode, there is no guest. I’m using this first episode to thank all of the wonderful publicists I’ve worked with and authors I’ve interviewed over the course of 2022, which was the best year ever for Uncorking a Story. In addition, I also share an open letter to my children, inspired by our...

K.K.  Weakley was born and reared in Wexford Ireland. She has written 11 books and plays for stage. K.K. loves to read historical fiction and a good love story kind of book and writes tales of castles, warriors, hell demons, witches and whatever else comes to her mind. Her latest series is Sekhet Saga which includes three books and one on the way.  Key Topics: How K.K.’s fascination with Irish Fol...

Tori Whitaker is a bestselling author who also belongs to the Bourbon Women Association and the Historical Novel Society. Her work has appeared in the Historical Novels Review and Bookmarks magazine. She graduated from Indiana University, is an alum of the Yale Writers' Workshop, and is recently retired from a national law firm where she served as chief marketing officer. She joins me today on Unc...

What’s wrong with being a little weird? I am fortunate in my career to meet new people every week through the work that I do and let me tell you, I definitely get a chance to see a good cross-section of humanity. Who do I remember the most? The ones who are, shall I say, a little off kilter. Who experience the world just a little bit (and sometimes a lot) differently than those in the center of th...

I like to tell people that I started Uncorking a Story as a way to give authors a platform for promoting their books, but the reality is that I had an ulterior motive behind starting the show—I wanted the opportunity to pick the brains of successful authors so that I could learn from them. As an author myself, what better way to learn from masters of the craft than having the chance to chat with t...

Over the course of my career I can point to three people who were excellent mentors for me—people who really helped shape who I am not only as a qualitative researcher, but as a person. They are Susanne Heincke, Liz Moore, and Paul Jacobson. Each helped to inspire me and prepare me for one of the most non-traditional careers in marketing and I am grateful for all the time they spent teaching, advi...

My eighty-nine year old mother has a catch phrase. When she doesn’t know what to say, she’ll typically belt on, “It’s all good.” Even though her age has robbed her of her short-term memory, she remains very optimistic and, in general, happy. Growing up, if I was ever anxious about something, she’d frequently say to me, “Things will happen on their own time.” I was reminded of that during my conver...

This is going to sound funny coming from the author of eight novels, but there was a time I didn’t consider myself to be creative. Growing up, I dreaded art class because I can’t draw to save my life and I always linked creativity with the ability to draw. On top of that, I was somewhat good at math and science while my twin brother excelled at English (and, aside from being 3 inches taller than m...

Today’s guest on Uncorking a Story, Karen Winnick, reminds me so much of my mother. Both are from Brooklyn and are animal lovers who would rather set a spider free than squish it. But unless my mother has been hiding the fact that she is a successful children’s book author searching to teach children about compassion for animals through her writing, that’s where the similarities may end. Meet Kare...

When I was a kid there were a few things I thought would be more of big deal in adulthood including quicksand, killer bees, and satanists. Now I am not saying these things don’t exist, just not at the level we were scared into believing as children. Dr. Richard Gallagher, though, might argue about the last item on my list as he’s spent the past quarter of a century investigating cases of demonic p...

My guest today, Nathanael Garret Novosel, was just six years old when he started questioning the meaning of life. When I was younger, I questioned it as well, but we went about it in different ways. For example, Nate asked big existential questions whereas yours truly watched Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. It’s no surprise, then, that Nate grew up to write a book on finding purpose and meanin...

I believe that, no matter how old we are, we never stop trying to secure the approval of one or both of our parents. While my twin brother was always searching for our father’s affections, I was always trying to vie for my mother’s approval in everything I did. Today’s guest, Brian O’Hare can relate. Imagine having a larger than life character as a father—someone who casts so wide a shadow, you mi...

Most people who now make their living as authors had a day job at some point. It is common for me to interview former teachers, professors, journalists and, interestingly, lawyers, but today was the first time I got to interview a former theoretical physicist—and there was nothing theoretical about this conversation! Meet Dilani Kahawala: Dilani earned her Ph. D. in theoretical physics from Harvar...

For so many of us writers, the actual act of writing is a solitary process. We write alone and maybe, after a while we will share something with a confidant or perhaps our agent. Of course, at the end of the first draft it will go to an editor and, at that point, writing becomes more of a collaborative process. Well, today’s guests do things a little bit differently—Alli Frank and Asha Youmans met...

How well do you remember high school? Chances are you are more likely to remember the big events that happened—prom, the homecoming dance where you spilled spiked fruit punch all over your crisp white shirt*, and graduation, but would you remember something as random as someone coming up to you and saying something off beat? Probably not, right? Well, my guest today not only remembered a random (a...

Parenting is supposed to come naturally to us, right? Especially moms! After the baby (or babies in my case) arrives, those motherhood instincts are supposed to kick in and you are supposed to know exactly what to do, right? Wrong! Postpartum depression is real, and many mothers don’t realize they are living with it. This leads to feelings of shame, guilt, and oftentimes resentment. Now you may be...

In my opinion, werewolves don’t get enough attention in the horror genre. Vampires are a bit higher on the food chain as are traditional slashers, but when was the last time you could point to a good werewolf character in a horror novel? Well, the wait is over with Rachel Harrison’s Such Sharp Teeth! Meet Rachel Harrison: Rachel Harrison took the horror genre by storm with debut novel The Return,...

After interviewing almost two hundred authors on Uncorking a Story I’ve come to believe that the real superpower authors wield isn’t their ability to string words together, but to find stories simply by paying attention to everyday occurrences and being very curious about them. I was reminded of this while interviewing the celestial Barbara Linn Probst. Meet Barbara Linn Probst: Barbara Linn Probs...

Today’s guest, Clare Pooley, and I share a few things in common. We both have backgrounds in advertising, we were both bloggers before becoming authors, and we both appreciate the music of Abba, which my inner heavy metal loving teenager would never admit. She recently joined me to talk about her latest novel, Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting. Meet Clare Pooley: Clare spent twenty years in the w...

I remember being called home from school during my senior year in High School because my grandmother, who lived with us at the time, had slipped into a coma. When I got home, I wanted to see her but my cousin said not to get my hopes up as she had been unresponsive for some time. Undeterred, I climbed up the stairs and sat by her bedside. As if on cue, her eyes opened and said, “My Michael, I’ve b...

U2’s seminal album Achtung Baby was released during my senior year in high school. At the time, I was a huge fan and didn’t know what to make of this new release as it was so different from their earlier work. Once I heard the song Mysterious Ways, though, I really started to dig what I was hearing. I can honestly say I love that album even more today than I did back then. What’s the connection be...

I spent most of my corporate career working in the area of market research. In short, I talk to consumers for a living and then turn their stories into narratives my clients can use for better decision making. When I think about it, Robert Kerbeck did something with the same intentions, but went about it in a completely different manner—and I was delighted to uncork his story. Meet Robert Kerbeck:...

As writers, we are eager for feedback and validation that something we’ve birthed has value and waiting for it, to paraphrase the late Tom Petty, is sometimes the hardest part. Today’s guest, Ali Michael, Ph. D. echoed that in something she said during our conversation, but make no mistake, this really isn’t a conversation about the writing process. It’s a conversation about her path to working to...

I remember being a kid never rushing away after big holiday dinners as I enjoyed listening to the adults tell stories. My twin brother was always bored by such things, but I loved hearing the stories of my grandmother coming to America from Italy and what it was like not being able to speak the language. She told me how the Italians would mime out the things they needed at the grocery store and my...