Sharing the Heart of the Matter

Vicki Atkinson and Wynne Leon are delighted to talk with author and publisher, Rick Kaempfer about his book EveryCubEver. This is the second game in our baseball double-header as we talk with the hilarious and engaging Rick about his labor of love, EveryCubEver. He swears this seventh edition of the book is the last time he’s going to update it until the Chicago Cubs win the World Series. There ar...

Vicki Atkinson and Wynne Leon are delighted to talk with author and publisher, Rick Kaempfer about his book EveryCubEver. This is the second game in our baseball double-header as we talk with the hilarious and engaging Rick about his labor of love, EveryCubEver. He swears this seventh edition of the book is the last time he’s going to update it until the Chicago Cubs win the World Series. There ar...

In this episode, Vicki Atkinson and Wynne Leon are delighted to be with Wynne's five-year-old son, Mr. D. Mr. D is so excited about starting on a Little League team that he asked to podcast about it. Which is saying something because he’s not as naturally voluble as his older sister. We're clearly biased about our guest. But in our opinion listening to the enthusiasm of a kid excited about...

In this episode, Vicki Atkinson and Wynne Leon are thrilled to be with the talented artist and author, Danny Gregory . Danny shares his incredible journey from being an ad agency creative director for 30 years to becoming a renowned author and artist. His books and newsletters are notjust inspiring; they are a daily call to create and live with purpose. They read like good philosophy, urging us to...

Vicki Atkinson and Wynne Leon are with best-selling author, Barbara Nickless. Barbara's fascinating resume includes roles as a technical writer, instructional designer, raptor rehabilitator, piano teacher, performer, sword fighter, and Director of Education for the country’s largest public astronomical observatory. She shares her journey to becoming a best-selling author of thrillers and how devas...

In this episode, Vicki Atkinson and Wynne Leon are with the delightful author and blogger, Darlene Foster. Darlene shares how she started writing her young adult series featuring Amanda Ross. It’s such a great story that captures so well the struggle for tone and perspective. And how once that key is unlocked we can keep on building! She brings us the magic, the mystery, and discovery that come wi...

In this episode, Vicki Atkinson and Wynne Leon are with Wynne's nine-year-old daughter, Miss O. Miss O was given a fourth grade class assignment to write about a perspective change. When she came home with this short essay about Wynne's dad, she was stunned. She reads the essay to us and tells us what inspired her. Clearly we have a personal interest in this but at a bigger level, it’s fas...

Vicki Atkinson and Wynne Leon are talking with writer, poet, artist, and blogger, Dave Williams. Joy is…having Dave Williams come on the podcast to tell us what inspired his recent project to collect and publish what sparks joy in the blogging community. He tells us how he was inspired by the spirit of his Aunt Diane. Celebrating her infectious personality after she passed away last summer was one...

In this episode, Vicki Atkinson and Wynne Leon are with friend and author, Christina Dudley talking about Christina’s book Pride and Preston Lin . We love this book. Christina has created a fantastic adaptation of Jane Austen’s beloved book Pride and Prejudice. And it is so much more than a contemporary retelling of the story. Christina’s dialogue and clever plot devices make it a compelling and d...

In this episode, Vicki Atkinson and Wynne Leon have turned the hosting duties over our Sharing the Heart of the Matter partner, Brian Hannon. Brian's roots as a journalist are on full display in this episode. He is such a fantastic interviewer. He coaxes out the lessons Vicki and I have learned in 100 episodes. And he challenges us to think big to answer who would be on our celebrity guest lis...

In this episode, Vicki Atkinson and Wynne Leon are back with author and blogger, Melanie McGauran and we are talking about writer lessons. Melanie always inspires us with her curiosity and willingness to learn. She is so generous to be willing to share her lessons with us. She tells us the story behind her essay Growing Up Fast in 1978. We love the essay for its revealing look at her family dynami...

In this episode, Vicki Atkinson and Wynne Leon are back with author and blogger Mark Petruska and we are out of our comfort zone. This format was Mark’s idea - to do a podcast without any prompts. To be fair, it’s not that different than our standard format. Usually we go into an episode with three or so prompts of things to talk about. But as all you listeners know, we clearly go down any side ro...

In this episode, Vicki Atkinson and Wynne Leon celebrate our 100th episode. We sit down to mark the moment and answer four questions: What were our favorite stories? Do we have a biggest a-ha moment? What have we learned as hosts? Goals for the Sharing the Heart of the Matter podcast in 2025? Vicki shares that she actually went back and listened to the very first episode. She says that instead of...

In this episode, Vicki Atkinson and Wynne Leon are with author and retired teacher, Pete Springer. Pete always delivers inspiration and in this episode, it comes in remembrance of his great mentor and friend, Nancy Wheeler. Nancy showed how to give the gift of herself, to quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson. In her years as a teacher, principal, mentor and community member, she lived a life full of ser...

Vicki Atkinson and Wynne Leon are with blogger and teacher, Beth Kennedy, over a big pot of soup. Metaphorically speaking of course because we’re separated by three different times zones. But otherwise, we can really stretch the goodness of soup. Beth tells us why she likes soup so much to inspire more than 20 posts over the years. We discuss the multicultural as well as the community aspect of it...

In this episode, Vicki Atkinson and Wynne Leon are talking with author, public speaker, and parental advocate, Vickie Rubin. Vickie gives us the elevator pitch for her book, Raising Jess . She jokes that it's long enough to require an elevator in the tallest building in Manhattan. Fitting, because there is so much goodness in her book about raising her child with a chromosome deletion: mother’s in...

In this episode, Vicki Atkinson and Wynne are talking with author, blogger, and WordPress pro, Mark Petruska. This year is Mark’s 15th year blogging on WordPress. And he blogged on a different platform before that. Clearly, he’s a pro. So he walks us through the many things that he’s done to keep things fresh over the years. Switching themes, changing site names, even combining two blogs and chang...

In this episode, Wynne Leon and Vicki Atkinson are with blogger, parent and social justice advocate, Ab. Ab tells us the great story of a chance encounter he had with a woman standing next to him and his family in an hour-long line. She led with a query and Ab answered with his trademark humor and openness. Vicki and Wynne delve into how these encounters can be very different from what we imagine...

In this episode Vicki Atkinson and Wynne Leon are talking with author, blogger, and former newspaper writer, Melanie McGauran about decoding our dreams. This is such a fascinating episode. The interior of our minds is an interesting, and sometimes scary, place. But it is so fun how Melanie brings her love of mysteries to this practice of sifting through the clues. Melanie talks about her fascinati...

Vicki Atkinson and Wynne Leon talk with author, blogger, life coach, and health and wellness professional, Cindy Georgakas. In this vibrant conversation we get such a wonderful taste of Cindy’s energized and connected presence. She tells us how Covid was the impetus of starting to share wellness information in a different format. That led to her book released last year in the Happiness Category, R...

Vicki Atkinson and Wynne Leon talk with author, and blogger, Lauren Scott. Lauren tell us the beautiful story about how she started a poetry blog 14 years ago. In the process, she cultivated the roots she’d planted as a young girl for poetry as a destination for her emotions. Vicki and Wynne ask how she took the step from her blog to publishing books. Lauren tells us the themes of each of her FOUR...

Vicki Atkinson and Wynne Leon talk with author, blogger, and corporate communications specialist, Brian Hannon about National Novel Writing Month. Brian tells us why he values the encouragement and accountability piece of NaNoWriMo. He spills a little bit about the project he has in mind and the goals he’s setting for the month. Brian is such a great writer, with roots as a newspaper writer and co...

In this episode, Wynne Leon and Vicki Atkinson talk about site design and WordPress themes. We know - we can hear you groaning from here. In fact, Wynne is groaning right along with you even though this is a large part of what she's done professionally for 30 years. But if you are thinking about changing up your site or even just wondering if you should, there are some good tactics to help make th...

In this episode, Wynne Leon and Vicki Atkinson share a cup of tea. They bring in one of Wynne's favorite quotes about tea from Mark Nepo. He likens tea to the way we make sense of our lives. From gathering the leaves, to pouring water over it, to drinking it slowly, we cultivate the aromatic blend that helps us and heals us. Both Vicki and Wynne like the ritual because it slows us down. Having a c...

Wynne Leon and Vicki Atkinson talk about meditative moments. We think it’s fair to say that we all have times where life feels frenzied. And it isn’t only because our to-do lists get too long. It’s also because of the pace of the world around us, and our exposure to the news, in whatever way we consume it. Both Vicki and Wynne start the day with sacred time for meditation. It’s non-negotiable for...