Uncorking a Story

When I was eighteen, I was very clear on what I wanted to be when I grew up—a psychologist. Two people are to blame for my fascination in this social science; Mr. Michael Roper, who taught Intro to Psychology at my high school and Thomas Harris, who wrote Silence of the Lambs. The former was an amazing teacher who brought the subject to life in such a way that I was captivated to read everything I could on the topic. Which led me to the latter— Harris’ Silence of the Lambs led me to his first book featuring Hannibal Lecter, The Red Dragon, and I thought working as an FBI profiler would be a lot more interesting than sitting at a desk all day. Spoiler alert, I never became a psychologist or a profiler, but that’s a story for another time.

I mention all of this because my guest today, Alicia Thompson, and I share a love of psychology, reading and writing, and I had a lot of fun uncorking her story.

Meet Alicia Thompson:

Alicia is a writer who wrote her debut novel between pulling all-nighters on her senior thesis. Her short stories have appeared in Girls’ Life magazine and, as a teen, she appeared in an episode of 48 hours in the audience of a local murder trial, where she broke the fourth wall by looking directly into the camera. She recently joined me on Uncorking a Story to talk about her latest book, Love in the Time of Serial Killers.

Key Topics:

Buy Love in the Time of Serial Killers:

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3vw0DH6

Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/54587/9780593438657

Connect with Alicia

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aliciabooks/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/aliciabooks

Connect with Mike

Website: https://uncorkingastory.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSvS4fuG3L1JMZeOyHvfk_g

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uncorkingastory/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/uncorkingastory

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uncorkingastory

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/uncorking-a-story/

If you like this episode, please share it with a friend. If you have not done so already, please rate and review Uncorking a Story on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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I’ll admit it, I became a subscriber to Sirius XM when Howard Stern left terrestrial radio for satellite. One evening, though, on a long drive from Boston to Connecticut, I came across The Catholic Channel and listened to a program called The Busted Halo show, in which the host, Fr. Dave Dwyer, took calls from the audience who posed questions of faith. The host had a very relaxed and very humorous approach to answering all of the questions posed to him and I thought to myself, “There’s no way this guy is a priest.” I became a loyal listener, dare I say a fan, and made it a personal mission to meet the one and only Fr. Dave Dwyer, who had such an interesting backstory that, after coming up with the idea for Uncorking a Story, I asked him to be my first guest.

Meet Fr. Dave Dwyer, CSP:

Fr. Dave Dwyer, CSP, is Executive Director of Busted Halo, a media ministry of the Paulist Fathers that helps Catholics share their faith joyfully. He’s also the award-winning host of The Busted Halo Show weeknights on SiriusXM radio. He is a popular speaker, mission preacher, and television commentator, having appeared on CNN, Fox News, EWTN, The History Channel, NBC, Entertainment Tonight, and The Daily Show . The Catholic Media Association bestowed on Father Dave its inaugural Gabriel Award for Personal Achievement in 2021. He has worked in campus ministry at the Universities of Colorado and Texas, and has developed ministry programs for the Military Archdiocese. Prior to ordination, he directed television for MTV and Comedy Central. He recently joined me on Uncorking a Story to discuss his latest book, Mass Class: Your Questions Answered.

Key Topics:

Buy Mass Class: Your Questions Answered

Paulist Press: https://www.paulistpress.com/Products/0666-0/mass-class.aspx

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3CtMDl4

Connect with Fr. Dave

Website: https://bustedhalo.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fatherdavedwyer/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/fatherdavedwyer

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fatherdave

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/bustedhalovideo

Connect with Mike

Website: https://uncorkingastory.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSvS4fuG3L1JMZeOyHvfk_g

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uncorkingastory/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/uncorkingastory

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uncorkingastory

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/uncorking-a-story/

If you like this episode, please share it with a friend. If you have not done so already, please rate and review Uncorking a Story on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Sometimes when I’m writing I get into what I call "the zone." Time seems to stop and I’m only pulled out of it when my presence is missed, which is a nice way of saying someone is yelling at me to rejoin the family. Lauren Forsythe calls this catching a wave, and I’m totally stealing that metaphor.

Meet Lauren Forsythe:

By day, Lauren is a content marketing manager, finding ways to get writing into people’s eagerly waiting eye-holes, and by night…well it’s the same thing, but with more wine. Lauren writes books about strong women, men with pretty eyelashes, and friends that save your life. She recently joined me on Uncorking a Story to discuss her career and latest book, the Fixer Upper. 

Key Topics:

Buy The Fixer Upper

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3Qa5wgV

Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/54587/9780593422519

Connect with Lauren

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurenforsythe_author/?hl=en

Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenf_writer

Connect with Mike

Website: https://uncorkingastory.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSvS4fuG3L1JMZeOyHvfk_g

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uncorkingastory/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/uncorkingastory

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uncorkingastory

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/uncorking-a-story/

If you like this episode, please share it with a friend. If you have not done so already, please rate and review Uncorking a Story on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I’ve interviewed a lot of lawyers turned authors on Uncorking a Story but who I haven’t interviewed is a lawyer turned author who received a call from former President Bill Clinton to shoot the breeze about his work. That all changed the day I interviewed David Pepper

Meet David Pepper:

David Pepper is the author of The Voter File, The People's House, and The Wingman, all of which feature Jack Sharpe. He earned his B.A. from Yale University and his J.D. from Yale Law School. He has clerked for a judge on the United States Court of Appeals, served in local elected office in Ohio, worked for major law firms, and taught election and voting rights law. Prior to law school, Pepper worked in St. Petersburg, Russia, for the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. In 2015, he was unanimously elected Chairman of the Democratic Party of Ohio. He recently joined me on Uncorking a Story to discuss his latest novel, A Simple Plan.

Key Topics:

“Even before I had an agent and even before I had a publisher, thousands of people had read The People’s House and got a lot out of it. And that itself was great for me.” — David Pepper

Buy: A Simple Choice

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3DuXqfK

Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/54587/9780593419731

Connect with David

Website: https://davidpepper.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidpepperOH/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_davidpepper/

Twitter:https://twitter.com/DavidPepper

Connect with Mike

Website: https://uncorkingastory.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSvS4fuG3L1JMZeOyHvfk_g

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uncorkingastory/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/uncorkingastory

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uncorkingastory

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/uncorking-a-story/

If you like this episode, please share it with a friend. If you have not done so already, please rate and review Uncorking a Story on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For the past twenty years, I’ve been the father of triplets and so much of my identity is tied to my role as father. But what happens when they fly the nest and begin living independently? I’ll admit it, I had a bit of an identity crisis when they went off to college and it took me some time to identify with other parts of my identity that I had suppressed or even forgotten.

Today’s guest, Giovanni Ruscitti, only discovered a significant part of his identity later in adulthood upon visiting his father’s ancestral town in Italy. His father fled Italy in 1943 after the Nazis came in and, after surviving in the mountains for a while, managed to immigrate to the United States where he worked a series of odd jobs while beginning and raising a family.

Meet Giovanni Ruscitti:

Giovanni is a first generation Italian-American who grew up in Frederick, Colorado, a small coal mining town that his parents and grandparents immigrated to in the 1950s and early 1960s. He is a nationally recognized attorney, arbitrator, and mediator, as well as a frequent speaker at national legal events and was named as one of the most influential business leaders in Colorado, and has served on numerous non-profit boards. Giovanni joined me today to talk about his memoir, Cobblestones, Conversations, and Corks: A Son's Discovery of His Italian Heritage.

Topics Covered:

“Forgiveness is freedom. Most people are doing the best they can under the circumstances with the tools that they have. I learned that from my father and was able to forgive the things that put us apart for a period of time. I’ve learned you have to try to understand why someone is doing what they're doing and who they are. Don’t be so quick to judge.” — Giovanni Ruscitti

Buy: Cobblestones, Conversations, and Corks: A Son's Discovery of His Italian Heritage

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3d1X9q0

Connect with Giovanni 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/giovanni-ruscitti-5070835/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gio_1966/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1120740796

Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/rusc66

Connect with Mike

Website: https://uncorkingastory.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSvS4fuG3L1JMZeOyHvfk_g

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uncorkingastory/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/uncorkingastory

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uncorkingastory

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/uncorking-a-story/

If you like this episode, please share it with a friend. If you have not done so already, please rate and review Uncorking a Story on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

About Sangu Mandanna

Sangu was four years old when an elephant chased her down a forest road and she decided to write her first story about it. Seventeen years and many manuscripts later, she signed her first book deal. She joins me today to talk about her latest novel, The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches.

In this episode, Mike and Sangu discuss: 

Key Takeaways: 

“No matter how blank the page is, it never stays blank.” – Sangu Mandanna

 Buy The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3OO5dXZ

Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/54587/9780593439357

Connect with Sangu Mandanna: 

Website: https://sangumandanna.com/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SanguMandanna 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sangumandanna/ 

Connect with Mike Carlon:

Website: https://uncorkingastory.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSvS4fuG3L1JMZeOyHvfk_g

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uncorkingastory/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/uncorkingastory

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uncorkingastory

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/uncorking-a-story/

If you like this episode, please share it with a friend. If you have not done so already, please rate and review Uncorking a Story on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

About Allison Gilbert: 

Allison is an award-winning journalist and author of numerous books including Passed and Present and Parentless Parents. Her forthcoming book, Listen, World!: How the Intrepid Elsie Robinson Became America’s Most-Read Woman, is the inspiring story of a timeless maverick, capturing what it means to take a gamble on self-fulfillment and find freedom along the way.

In this episode, Mike and Allison discuss: 

• Allison’s journey from journalist to book author (including her near death on September 11th). 
• Writing as catharsis and therapy. 
• How our education system keeps us from learning about the impact of women and where we can learn more.
• Stories to bring you into another family and world. 

Key Takeaways: 

• The practical skills that you learn in other careers can often be applied to your writing. 
• Writing can be a form of therapy, for authors of both fiction and non-fiction. It is a way of getting lost in a world that you have control over. 
• When you downplay the role of women in the creation of your country and current culture, then we learn fewer histories. 
• When you get stuck on a project, do more work. Having a good outline to start can help, but if you don’t know what to write, you just need more information. 

"If you are so passionate about your topic, do not give up. Ultimately, it just took one editor to say ‘yes.’" – Allison Gilbert

 Buy Listen, World!: How the Intrepid Elsie Robinson Became America’s Most-Read Woman

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3P6xklR

Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/54587/9781541674356

Connect with Allison

Website: https://www.allisongilbert.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agilbertwriter/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/agilbertwriter/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/agilbertwriter

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/agilbertwriter/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNUhHAyA9RBL3sav6W2qo8Q

Connect with Mike

Website: https://uncorkingastory.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSvS4fuG3L1JMZeOyHvfk_g

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uncorkingastory/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/uncorkingastory

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uncorkingastory

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/uncorking-a-story/

If you like this episode, please share it with a friend. If you have not done so already, please rate and review Uncorking a Story on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I’ll admit it, I love watching The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross. Here’s the thing, though, I can’t draw to save my life, but I am drawn to that show the way some people are drawn to watching fish swim in a tank. He was a talented artist, no doubt, but what I appreciated more than his talent was his calm and serene demeanor which complimented the naturescapes he was fond of painting. One phrase he used often when he may have made unanticipated brush strokes was “Happy little accidents.” And a happy little accident is where author Katherine Linn Caire’s story begins.

About Katherine Linn Caire

Kathe was born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa. She attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, where she swam for the Mustangs and received her BBA (Finance), with Minors in Art History and Economics. Although her career has spanned the gamut from commercial banking lender to advertising account executive, from calligrapher/artist to tennis official, she has found her true delight in putting pen to paper. She recently joined me to discuss her memoir Accidental Sisters: The Story of My 52-Year Wait to Meet My Biological Sibling.

The happy little accident that set the events of this memoir into motion was when her birth mother’s full name was not redacted in a file including her birth parents’ health history. Curiosity got the better of her and Kathe did some Googling to try and find her birth mother, but kept hitting wall after wall. One year, for Mother’s Day, her daughters gave her a birth mother search as a gift. While it turned out her birth mother had died years earlier, it did reveal something Kathe didn’t anticipate—she had a sister.

In our conversation, Kathe and I discuss:

1. Her belief that divine intervention was at play, bringing her together with her sister.
2. Why the best gifts are the ones you never anticipated asking for.
3. What it was like talking and meeting her sister for the first time.
4. Why your book is never 95% done when you hand it over to your editor.
5. The importance of collaborating with your content editor to make your book as good as it can be.

“Don't be so sure that you know what you want until you're faced with the situation. I think for many years, I was very sure that having my mom and my dad, my brother, and my grandmother and my grandfather, was all I needed. And that there wasn't really anything more to my life than the family that I had.I did not have any idea whatsoever that I felt the way that I did, until I was actually faced with the situation.” — Kathe Caire

Buy: Accidental Sisters:The Story of My 52-Year Wait to Meet My Biological Sibling. 

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3BAbUK8

Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/54587/9781953865571

Connect with Katherine

Website: https://klcairebooks.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skilletfam910/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/klcairebooks/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/klcairebooks

Connect with Mike

Website: https://uncorkingastory.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSvS4fuG3L1JMZeOyHvfk_g

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uncorkingastory/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/uncorkingastory

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uncorkingastory

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/uncorking-a-story/

If you like this episode, please share it with a friend. If you have not done so already, please rate and review Uncorking a Story on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

About Ava Glass: Ava Glass is a former civil servant and journalist who once worked closely with spies. She lives in the same town in the south of England as Christopher Steele. But this is, of course, a coincidence. She joined me on Uncorking a Story to talk about her career and latest novel, Alias Emma.

In this episode, Mike and Ava discuss: 

• Being captured by writing while living on the careening train of life. 
• Your first published book not being your first attempt at writing a book. 
• Surprises in the publishing industry. 
• Worrying too much and living the advice you would tell your younger self. 

Key Takeaways: 

• Reading is not necessarily the path to being a writer, but it does help cultivate an active imagination. 
• Story ideas can come from anywhere - careers, television, news articles, travel, and so many more places. Keep your eyes and ears open and you will become inspired.
• You can learn a lot about yourself as you write fiction. 
• No chapter gets more rewritten than chapter one. You don’t have to worry if it is awful, because it is just going to be rewritten. 

"Making things up for a living is the ultimate indulgence of your inner child. I make up people; I make up stories. I tell stories to myself constantly. I feel like, in every book, I'm going to be telling stories to people. So that is the ultimate gift I could give my inner kid." – Ava Glass

Buy Alias Emma

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3PtYFhW

Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/54587/9780593496794

Connect with Ava

Website: https://www.avaglass.uk/ 

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/avaglassbooks/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AvaGlassBooks

Connect with Mike Carlon:

Website: https://uncorkingastory.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSvS4fuG3L1JMZeOyHvfk_g

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uncorkingastory/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/uncorkingastory

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uncorkingastory

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/uncorking-a-story/

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Every now and then I uncork a story that just won’t leave me and Annette Libeskind Berkovits’ story is exactly one of those.

While this is a story about a person growing up in the shadow of the Holocaust, I want to be clear, as does Annette, that this is not a tragedy. In fact, it is a story about overcoming trauma and learning how to adapt when the winds of change are blowing in your face.

In our rich and emotional conversation centered around her latest memoir, Aftermath: Coming-of-Age on Three Continents, Annette and I cover:

1. Why, when growing up in post-war Poland, Annette felt she did not see in color, only black and white.
2. How she felt when moving to the fledgling state of Israel, the challenges of learning a new language, Hebrew, and how she began seeing in color during this time.
3. The heartbreak she felt when her father left Israel for America.
4. How Annette adjusted to life in America after settling in the Bronx, all the while not knowing the language with her only frame of reference of the United States being the propaganda the Soviets taught her about America when she was in Poland.
5. Why learning from the past is important and how it does not have to define what the future holds for us.

“My father populated my entire childhood with people who were murdered, not just his family, but also his friends and his teachers and and I just feel a responsibility to pass it on. And recently, my daughter wrote a story about the impact of anti-semitism that she just had published in the Jewish Writing Project. So that history, as you say, gets passed down the generations, and when it doesn't it's a real problem.” — Annette Libeskind Berkovits

Annette’s story is really one of overcoming hardship, adversity, and the trauma of the past. I know you will be inspired by our conversation and ask that you take the time to listen to this in its entirety.

Buy: Aftermath: Coming-of-Age on Three Continents

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3qFBVRX

Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/54587/9789493276390

Connect with Annette

Website: https://annetteberkovits.com

Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3eUZmEh

Facebook:https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100013598386903

Connect with Mike

Website: https://uncorkingastory.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSvS4fuG3L1JMZeOyHvfk_g

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uncorkingastory/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/uncorkingastory

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uncorkingastory

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/uncorking-a-story/

If you like this episode, please share it with a friend. If you have not done so already, please rate and review Uncorking a Story on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.