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

Vickie’s openness and support of others are so inspiring. In her work supporting other families trying to navigate the systems to get resources for their children to Facebook communities, Vickie is a powerful parental resource and advocate. By telling her story, she continues to help others navigate their own challenges.

Vicki and Wynne ask about what’s next for Vickie. She’s recently published an article in Newsweek and she tells us about the writing classes she taking.

This is a great episode that not only focuses on the resilience, love, and thriving of one family but also inspires the same in everyone who listens. When we share our stories, we empower others and Vickie illustrates that so well.

I’m confident you’ll love the scenic and beautiful places we explore as we share the power of storytelling – in our books, our podcasts, and our lives.

We know you’ll love it!

On a programming note, this is the last episode of 2024. We'll drop the next one on Jan 10, 2025. See you then!

Links for this episode:

Episode 97 show notes

Vickie Rubin | Author & Advocate | Special Needs Parenting
Thankful for Superhero Healthcare Folks: Bones, Scopes & Hopes
Newsweek Article: Mom’s Diagnosis Was Crushing Enough, Then She Gave Me an Ominous Warning

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/

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 changing URLs.

His advice as a veteran? Know the purpose of your blog and keep it in mind as you redesign.

Mark tells us about December snow and for us relatively new people to WordPress, it’s some cool history.

One of the takeaways that I love from this conversation is that Mark talks about site design as a creative act in and of itself. So if we are ever stuck in a writing rut, it’s one idea to get us out!

This is a really encouraging episode that on the surface is about  the considerations behind designing a good site and all that goes in to a WordPress blog. But really it’s also about knowing your purpose and embracing change in any area. Mark’s long experience is both illuminating and emboldening.

I’m confident you’ll love the scenic and beautiful places we explore as we share the power of storytelling – not only in our words but also in our site designs.

We know you’ll love it!

Links for this episode

Episode 96 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/

Other Episodes with Mark:

Episode 65: How to Be the New Guy with Mark Petruska

Episode 41: Enter if You Dare with Mark Petruska

Episode 33: Love Lessons with Mark Petruska

Episode 26: Eye of the Tiger with Mark Petruska

Episode 18: No Time for Kings with Mark Petruska

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, 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

Vicki and Wynne delve into how these encounters can be very different from what we imagine when we genuinely lean into them.

Ab talks about the loneliness epidemic and how the antidote to negative feelings and isolation is connection. While finding your people isn’t always easy, it’s facilitated by having an open-heart.

We explore how sometimes we're in the prison of our own thoughts and how human connection breaks us out of that loop and facilitates kindness.  

This is such a fascinating episode. We love the kinship we with have with Ab. And he’s so good at illustrating how community is where kindness and empathy happens. It’s where we have the opportunity to support each other and create deep relationships.

I’m confident you’ll love the scenic and beautiful places we explore as we share the power of storytelling about finding our people.

We know you’ll love it!

Links for this episode:

Sharing the Heart of the Matter Episode 95 show notes

Ab's Blog: My life with T

Ab's post: Hiking Takakkaw Falls and Canoeing Emerald Lake at Yoho National Park

The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community's 2023 report "Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation"  

The Human Library Movement

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 talking with author, blogger, and former newspaper writer, Melanie

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 fascination with dreams and how she both remembers hers and extends them. It’s a wonderful practice to not only appreciate the dreamscape but also focus the mind in the middle of the night.

She introduces us to the work of Matthew Walker, author of Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams and his insight that in dreaming, we access our memory

Melanie combines that memory mixology with her unstoppable creativity, joy and problem-solving to decode dreams.

This episode is such a fun take on dreaming, writing and creativity. We love Melanie’s passion and interest and get to see that in action as she helps us make stories from our dreams.

I’m confident you’ll love the scenic and beautiful places we explore as we share the power of storytelling – in podcasts, in conversation, and in dreams.

We know you’ll love it!

Links for this episode:

Episode 94 show notes

Late and Lost by Vicki Atkinson

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

"Why We Sleep" - Matthew Walker, Ph.D

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 talk with author, blogger,

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, Re-Create and Celebrate: 7 Steps to Live the

Hearing Cindy tell these stories underscores the rich lessons of learning to adjust when what we’ve planned turns out to be different timing and format.

Vicki and Wynne ask Cindy about what else she has planned on her creative radar.

This is a great episode because all of Cindy’s answers are so full of heart. She is an inspiring author to listen to – because

I’m confident you’ll love the scenic and beautiful places we explore as we share the power of storytelling – in podcasts, in poetry, and in conversation.

We know you’ll love it!

Links for this Episode:

Episode 93 show notes

Cindy's website and blog: https://uniquelyfitblog.com/

Re-create & Celebrate: 7 Steps to Turn Your Dreams Into Reality

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 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 published books. She weaves the theme of love through all of them, even the most serious, just the way love carries us through life.

And she gives us a sneak peek into the children’s book that is about to hit the press. She authored it with her nephew as illustrator.

The morning we recorded this podcast, Lauren’s piece Treats Only, Please was announced as best publication of the month on Spillwords Press

This podcast is like a master class on the growth mindset. Those are our words, not Lauren’s because she is wonderfully humble and real. Which makes it even more powerful and inspiring to hear Lauren tell about her writer’s journey – all the things she’s overcome and been willing to try – and how that feeds into fantastic ideas for new projects.

We're confident you’ll love the scenic and beautiful places we explore as we share the power of storytelling – in podcasts, in posts, and in novels.

We know you’ll love it!

Links for this podcast:

Episode 92 show notes

Website: baydreamerwrites.com
Author Of The Month, May 2023 Spillwords Press
Monthly Contributor, Gobbers-Masticadores Literary Website
Amazon Author Page

Vicki’s book about resilience and love: Surviving Sue

Wynne’s book about her beloved father: Finding My Father’s Faith

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 corporate communications specialist. We get to see into the dichotomy of the flexibility in writing Brian has so beautifully explored in posts this week contrasted with the structure necessary to produce a novel.

So it’s fun to hear how he makes time to write, especially as he gears up for NaNoWriMo.

Brian also turns the tables on Vicki and me and gets us to reveal a bit of the bigger projects we are working on. We get to collectively talk about the wonderful goal of producing “wholehearted writing” in whatever medium we choose.

I’m confident you’ll love the scenic and beautiful places we explore as we share the power of storytelling – in podcasts, in posts, and in novels.

We know you’ll love it!

Links for this episode:

Episode 91 show notes

Writing from the Heart with Brian: https://writingfromtheheartwithbrian.com/

Vicki’s book about resilience and love: Surviving Sue

Wynne’s book about her beloved father: Finding My Father’s Faith

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

We talk through some of the design considerations to be

We address some of the problems we’ve heard people have encountered when switching themes in WordPress like content disappearing and inability to revert back. Wynne offers some strategies for avoiding that flavor

There is a presentation that gives these elements and

We're confident you’ll love the scenic and beautiful places

We know you’ll love it!

Links for this episode:

Episode 90 show notes

Related episode: Episode 87: LinkedIn Tweaks for Authors

Vicki’s book about resilience and love: Surviving Sue

Wynne’s book about her beloved father: Finding My Father’s Faith

In this episode, Wynne Leon and Vicki Atkinson share a cup of tea.

Links for this episode:

Episode 89 show notes

Vicki’s book about resilience and love: Surviving Sue

Wynne’s book about her beloved father: Finding My Father’s Faith

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 Wynne so that she can

But we know that doesn’t work for everyone. So we talk about our tricks to instill some calm. Vicki tells us about how she sets aside multi-tasking to focus on one thing at a time. And more than that, how to slow tasks to reap the full benefit.

For Wynne, music can help to disrupt the stress swirl. Tuning in to songs from my youth delivers a noticeable energy lift as well. We touch on the research of Harvard psychology professor Dr. Ellen Langer about how our brains can impact our bodies.

It’s not hard to imagine that Vicki is an inveterate smile-r. She shares a story about how offering friendliness to others brings a side benefit of joy.

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

We know you’ll love it!

Links for the episode:

Episode 88 show notes

Episode 79: Sometimes You Have to Laugh with Author Pete Springer – The Heart of the Matter (sharingtheheartofthematter.com)

The Subtle Shaping of Our Brains – The Heart of the Matter (sharingtheheartofthematter.com)

Meditate on this! – The Heart of the Matter (sharingtheheartofthematter.com)

Write it Out – The Heart of the Matter (sharingtheheartofthematter.com)

Vicki’s book: Surviving Sue

Wynne’s book about her beloved father: Finding My Father’s Faith