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 with travel and tweens. The delight of being unencumbered enough to not be afraid to see where things lead.

Darlene does such a beautiful job of writing about travel and adventure because she lives a life of travel and adventure. She tells us what it’s like to be bi-continental and why money should not be the limiting factor.

She is so inspirational. I know you’ll agree as you listen to how she reminds us to make our dreams come true. Darlene’s story is so inspiring. She beautifully shows us how to attach to goals and just keep moving.

We’re confident you’ll love the scenic and beautiful places we explore as we talk about dreams, travel and adventure!

We know you’ll love it!

Links for this post:

Episode 107 show notes

https://www.darlenefoster.ca/

https://darlenefoster.wordpress.com/

From the hosts:

Vicki’s book about resilience and love: Surviving Sue; Blog: https://victoriaponders.com/

Wynne’s book about her beloved father: Finding My Father’s Faith; Blog: https://wynneleon.com/

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 fascinating to see what kids take away from family stories.

Vicki asks about how Miss O finds her voice and is so good at teasing out why it’s so meaningful to hear it from her perspective.

When we dig in to what Miss O knows about her grandfather who she never met, it’s both interesting and endearing to see the impression she’s gleaned of my dad. It’s also really funny to see the many ways they are alike.

Miss O talks about what she is doing next. Namely, making a slime channel on YouTube kids. As Miss O says, she is passionate about slime and she wants to share hercreations. Fortunately, for all us we have boundaries – the slime has to stay in the rec room and she’s only showing her hands.

We’re confident you’ll love the scenic and beautiful places we explore as we talk about family stories!

We know you’ll love it!

Links for this post:

Episode 106 show notes

From the hosts:

Vicki’s book about resilience and love: Surviving Sue; Blog: https://victoriaponders.com/

Wynne’s book about her beloved father: Finding My Father’s Faith; Blog: https://wynneleon.com/

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 of the motivations behind this project.

Another was the idea to strengthen the delight muscle. A suggestion in the book Daily Delight by Ross Gay prompted Dave to want to cultivate the same upward spiral.

And Dave was also inspired by Teri Polen’s Bad Moon Rising blogging project that brings the WordPress community together.

In the end, Dave found and shared so much joy in this community project. He’s compiled a Joy Is _____ table of contents that we know will inspire you.

We’re confident you’ll love the scenic and beautiful places we explore as we talk about what joy is and how to celebrate that as a community!

We know you’ll love it!

Links for this episode:

Episode 105 show notes

Dave's Blog: https://davewilliamswriter.wordpress.com/

Dave's "Joy is..." Index of posts: Index of posts in the Joy project – Dave WilliamsFrom the hosts:

Vicki’s book about resilience and love: Surviving Sue; Blog: https://victoriaponders.com/

Wynne’s book about her beloved father: Finding My Father’s Faith; Blog: https://wynneleon.com/

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 devourable book. Trust me, Wynne can attest because she hid from her kids for an hour so she could finish it.

Christina tells us about being an avid reader growing up and never realizing that none of the characters resembled her. So she shares with us her a-ha moment when she read her first Chinese American author. We also talk about how she found her path to writing.

Her inspiration and lessons learned are so interesting and powerful. From notes about the romance genre overall to the marketing tactics she has discovered, Christina generously shares a lot of great info, some of which she had to divine by trial and error.

In this episode, we not only talk about writing but also about the beautiful arc of characters. It’s a great takeaway of kindness and thoughtfulness that is sure to leave you inspired.

We’re confident you’ll love the scenic and beautiful places we explore as we share the storytelling about a great book and more!

We know you’ll love it!

Links for this episode

Episode 104 show notes

Christina's website: https://christinadudley.com/books/pride-preston-lin/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199362002-pride-and-preston-lin

From the hosts:

Vicki’s book about resilience and love: Surviving Sue; Blog: https://victoriaponders.com/

Wynne’s book about her beloved father: Finding My Father’s Faith; Blog: https://wynneleon.com/

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 list.

In some very delightful and prescient chit chat, we get to cheer on the Eagles in advance of their Super Bowl LIX performance.

Most of all, we have a great time celebrating the milestone of 100 episodes and taking a moment to appreciate what goes into starting, envisioning and maintaining a collaborative effort like a podcast.

We’re confident you’ll love the scenic and beautiful places we explore as we tell stories about making a podcast!

We know you’ll love it!

Links for this episode:

Episode 103 show notes

Brian's blogWriting from the Heart with Brian

From the hosts:

Vicki’s book about resilience and love: Surviving Sue; Blog:https://victoriaponders.com/

Wynne’s book about her beloved father: Finding My Father’s Faith; Blog:https://wynneleon.com/

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 dynamics and the complicated path she had to walk to get to go to college.

And then she shares some of the lessons she learned from a class she took with author Marin Sardy. She tells us about the chronological canyon and other pitfalls we can fall into.

Melanie shares some of the back and forth she had with Marin as she absorbed the feedback Marin gave her. We laugh that sometimes it’s hard to listen even if the source is an acclaimed author.

And then she extends the lessons with some wise and practical tidbits she picked up from a writing book by Steven Pressfield.

Melanie reveals his advice that hones in on the reader experience. And she shares some questions he provides to make sure content is relatable:

Is it fun?

Is it challenging?

Is it inventive?

Am I giving the reader enough?

Are they bored?

Are they taking me where I want to lead them?

 We’re confident you’ll love the scenic and beautiful places we explore as we share the writer lessons learned that help us improve and extend our storytelling!

We know you’ll love it!

Links for this episode:

Episode 102 show notes

Growing Up Fast in 1978

Melanie's blog: https://leavingthedooropen.com/

Steven Pressfield - writing that inspired Melanie: https://stevenpressfield.com/books/

From the hosts:

Vicki’s book about resilience and love: Surviving Sue; Blog: https://victoriaponders.com/

Wynne’s book about her beloved father: Finding My Father’s Faith; Blog: https://wynneleon.com/

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 roads and questions that occur as we talk.

But in this episode, we each came up with a question for the others to answer. No predetermined topic or heads up.

And you know what? It was fun. Kinda like a great dinner party conversation. It opened the forum up for off-the-cuff storytelling.

We're confident you’ll love the scenic and beautiful places we explore as we share the power of going out of our comfort zones to do unscripted storytelling!

We know you’ll love it!

Links for this episode:

Episode 101 show notes

Mark's book - a brilliant thriller: https://www.amazon.com/No-Time-Kings-Mark-Petruska/dp/1614344604

Mark's blog: https://markpetruska.com/

Vicki’s book about resilience and love: Surviving Sue; Blog: https://victoriaponders.com/

Wynne’s book about her beloved father: Finding My Father’s Faith; Blog: https://wynneleon.com/

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 the cringe-worthy moment she expected, it was worth listening to our goals of being authentic and vulnerable.

We also spend some time laughing about the technical difficulties we’ve encountered along the way. In spite of those, we’ve forged through and added features like captions and transcripts to make the podcast more accessible.

In this celebratory moment, we honor all the incredible and inspiring guests we’ve had on and applaud our wonderful listeners and subscribers. We couldn’t be more grateful for all of you who’ve accompanied us on this journey.

I’m confident you’ll love the scenic and beautiful places we explore as we share the power of storytelling and pause to celebrate before we move on to the next 100 episodes!

We know you’ll love it!

Links for this podcast:

Episode 100 show notes

Vicki’s book about resilience and love: Surviving Sue; Blog: https://victoriaponders.com/

Wynne’s book about her beloved father: Finding My Father’s Faith; Blog: https://wynneleon.com/

In this episode, Vicki Atkinson and Wynne Leon are with author and retired teacher, Pete Springer.

Links for this podcast:

Episode 99 show notes

Pete Springer – Passionate Teacher and Future Children's Author

My Heroine – Pete Springer

They Call Me Mom – Pete's beautiful book

From the hosts:

Vicki’s book about resilience and love: Surviving Sue; Blog: https://victoriaponders.com/

Wynne’s book about her beloved father: Finding My Father’s Faith; Blog: https://wynneleon.com/

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.

Vicki and Wynne ask about how she finds the terrific quotes to go with the hearty content. Beth shares some of the unusual sources that you wouldn’t expect in a quote about

We laugh about the different concoctions we’ve made and share the recipes – not only for a wonderful meal but also for community and connection.

We also talk about the Himalayan stew that inspired Beth’s post and how it’s like the melting pot of Everest Base Camp.

This is a great episode that will feed you on many levels. With an accompanying recipe, it’s great inspiration on the literal level. But also on the story-telling, creativity, and collaboration levels as well.

We're confident you’ll love the scenic and beautiful places we explore as we share the power of storytelling over a cup of good soup.

We know you’ll love it!

Links for this episode:

Episode 98 show notes (including Some Like It Hot Chili recipe)

Beth's Blog: https://ididnthavemyglasseson.com/

Good Soup by Beth

From the hosts:

Vicki’s book about resilience and love: Surviving Sue; Blog: https://victoriaponders.com/

Wynne’s book about her beloved father: Finding My Father’s Faith; Blog: https://wynneleon.com/