Uncorking a Story

For anyone out there who feels crippling stage fright before having to perform in front of an audience, this episode is for you! Today’s guest, Licensed Clinical Social Worker and author Elma Linz Kanefield, not only opens up about her own history with stage fright but tells us what we can do about it! She recently joined me on Uncorking a Story to discuss her life and latest book, Hamlet's Mirror...

What if it was easy to stop living for money? To have the health, wealth, and life you dream of? And the solution had nothing to do with politics or outside forces? Well, these are some of the questions today’s guest on Uncorking a Story,, Kristen Ragusin, poses in her new book, The End of Scarcity: The Dawn of the New Abundant World. Here today to talk about that book is author Kristen Ragusin. ...

Have you ever experienced a little voice inside your head trying to tell you something? Did you ever wonder where that voice was coming from? Have you ever listened to it? Well, today’s guest on Uncorking a Story, Suzanne Roske, ignored that voice for a long time until it shouted at her. When she finally did listen, her world changed radically for the better. Meet Suzanne Roske Suzanne Roske is a...

I share a few things in common with today’s esteemed guest on Uncorking a Story. Glenn Kaplan and I both worked at Foote, Cone, and Belding and we both live in Connecticut, but only one of us has made the New York Times Bestseller List (hint, it’s not me). He recently joined me to discuss his latest book Angel of Ambition. Meet Glenn Kaplan Glenn is the NY Times bestselling author of Evil Inc. and...

I love stories that involve cemeteries and libraries and today’s guest on Uncorking a Story has a one that involves both. Meet Ed Di Gangi Ed was adopted at birth in New York City. An only child, he made no effort to explore his heredity until, at age 69, a visit to a cemetery where members of his adoptive mother's family were buried stirred his interest. Over the past three years, through extensi...

I love a good story about people who break conventions and today’s guest on Uncorking a Story, Jessica Weaver, does just that. Shortly after getting started in the financial planning business, Jessica felt a calling to focus her efforts on women, and wow has that paid off! Along the way she has written three books (with another in the works), built a profitable business, and has changed the financ...

Today, we have a real treat for fans of US History. Today’s guest, Sewall Menzel, Ph. D., drops a bombshell about how President Roosevelt, playing the role of the Fox, provoked the Japanese to attack the United States at Pearl Harbor. More importantly, he also explains why.  Meet Sewall Menzel, Ph. D. Dr. Menzel is a career Army officer and university professor whose latest book, The Pearl Harbor...

We are often told to always look on the bright side of life—at least those of us who grew up watching Monty Python movies were told that. But how can we look on the bright side when the world around us appears to be so incredibly dark? Throughout her life, my guest today has faced constant adversity; a single mom at 18, abusive marriage for 20 years, cancer twice, but through it all, Trish Michael...

Melissa Payne is the bestselling, award-winning author of The Secrets of Lost Stones, Memories in the Drift and The Night of Many Endings. She joined me on Uncorking a Story to discuss her career and latest book, A Light in the Forest. Set in the hills of southeastern Ohio, it is a story about resilience and courage in the face of generational trauma. It's also  about finding hope, even in the dar...

New York Times, USAToday, and Wall St. Journal bestseller, M.J. Rose grew up in New York City mostly in the labyrinthine galleries of the Metropolitan Museum, the dark tunnels and lush gardens of Central Park, and reading her mother's favorite books before she was allowed. She believes mystery and magic are all around us but we are too often too busy to notice. Rose's work has appeared in many mag...

S. E. Boyd is the creation of veteran journalists Kevin Alexander and Joe Keohane, and editor Alessandra Lusardi. All lightly damaged Catholics prone to extensive over-analysis, Alexander, Keohane, and Lusardi have, between them, authored four books, edited dozens more, and written for Esquire, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker, among others. Alexander also won a James Beard Award for food writing,...

When I was a kid, I had dreams of joining the PGA tour; the only problem was, I really didn’t show a tremendous aptitude for the game of golf, which is kind of a precursor for playing professionally. In this way, I couldn’t be any more different than today’s guest, Matt McWilliams, who played the game collegiately and even made solid money in his early twenties as a teaching professional. He decid...

Susan Combs is President of Combs & Company, a full-service insurance brokerage firm based in New York City. She started the company at twenty-six years old with a drive to “Do more, better.” This internal mantra has resulted in numerous successes and firsts, like being named the youngest National President in the over eighty-five-year history of Women in Insurance & Financial Services (WIFS) and...

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...