Uncorking a Story

There is one thing that Lina Chern and I can wholeheartedly agree on and that’s the importance of having fun during the writing process. If what you are writing isn’t bringing you joy then, chances are, you aren’t going to want to see it through. It took Lina a long time to find the joy in writing her debut novel, but when she did things changed for the better! Meet Lina Chern Lina Chern is an aut...

Sometimes, beauty comes from tragedy, which is the backstory to Jill Santopolo’s debut novel The Light We Lost, which she penned after going through a traumatic breakup. Well, life has come full circle for Jill as her latest book, Stars in an Italian Sky, was inspired by something that happened while honeymooning with her husband in Italy. I love it when things work out the way they are meant to!...

Today’s guest on Uncorking a Story, Lyn Liao Butler, is the type of person who likes to have many irons in the fire. While working as a professional ballet and modern dancer in New York City, she ran her own gym. After retiring from dancing, she started a family, built an online business, and began writing novels. I got exhausted just thinking about all she does! One thing that stayed with me was...

One of the expressions my father is very fond of saying is, “Everything happens for a reason.” He’s also fond of saying, “If a problem can be solved with money, it’s not really a problem,” which is easy to say when one has money, but I digress. Over time, I have come to realize that yes, everything does happen for a reason, and today’s guest, the prolific Christopher Rice, agrees with me (and dad)...

The sparks that ignite story ideas are almost always rooted in experience, emotion, and curiosity. Today’s guest on Uncorking a Story, award winning author Cheryl A. Head, discusses how the murder of George Floyd served as the flashpoint for her latest novel, Time’s Undoing. Along the way she discusses how the murder of her own grandfather had her following her own curiosity back in time and inspi...

If you are like me, when you hear the term lunch lady you immediately think of Adam Sandler and Chris Farley, but today’s guest on Uncorking a Story, Vanessa David, smashes that stereotype. But this episode really isn’t about lunch ladies—it’s the story of a woman who overcame struggles and heartache to find the love within. Meet Vanessa David Vanessa David graduated from Western Connecticut State...

We can add today’s guest, William Landay, to the growing list of former lawyers turned authors who have come on Uncorking a Story to promote their work. While digging into this dynamic with William, it became clear to me why so many lawyers, especially trial attorneys, have a knack for writing—as he put it, you are trying to tell the story of the case and hope that you move your readers (i.e. juro...

Long-time listeners know that I’m the proud father of triplets and anyone who has seen me perform stand-up knows that I lean on my experiences raising them heavily when I perform. Well, today’s guest on Uncorking a Story, Cort Casady is also a father of triplets and joined me to talk about his latest book Not Your Father's America: An Adventure Raising Triplets in a Country Being Changed by Greed....

Some may believe that an author’s superpower is in the ability to string the right words together, in the right order, and use correct punctuation. While all of that is important, I believe that their real superpower is in their ability to experience an everyday event and feel compelled to reflect, write about it, and share it with others. Today’s guest on Uncorking a Story, Meg Stafford, has been...

As a small business owner, I’m always interested in how I can get better at sales, which is why I was so excited to speak with today’s guest, Anthony Iannarino. We had a fun conversation about how a daily blog turned into a book, his writing journey, and our mutual love of 80’s hard rock and heavy metal. Meet Anthony Iannarino Anthony spent twenty years selling and leading a sales force in the hig...

Today’s episode will leave you questioning whether or not the events that my guest Vincent (Vinnie) Tolman discusses actually happened. I’m okay with that (and so is he). When his publicist reached out with the opportunity to interview someone who was clinically dead for over 45 minutes and in a coma for three days after his heart re-started, I jumped at the chance as I thought it would be a fasci...

Today’s guest on Uncorking a Story, Donna Loughlin, and I were both involved in the early days of the 90s dot.com bubble, in similar roles. I was working to understand what consumers wanted in digital technologies and she was tasked with uncorking stories from the tech leaders of the day. We take a walk down memory lane, and so much more, in this episode of Uncorking a Story. Meet Donna Loughlin D...

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...