Uncorking a Story
Listen in to Uncorking a Story, where we pop the cork on hidden narratives and delve deep into the brilliant minds of your favorite authors. Get ready to unlock the magic behind your favorite books, one unforgettable story at a time. Hit that subscribe button and never miss a sip of inspiration!
Episodes
"At the end of the night after you've been performing in front of thousands and thousands of people, you go to your hotel room and you're alone and you have to deal with that."
— Machan Taylor
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Machan Taylor never meant to write a book. She was born in Japan, uprooted to New Jersey as a child, and spent four decades as a professional singer, touring stadiums with Pink Floyd in the eighties and Sting on the ...
"Even people who have been writing fiction for a long time feel that from book to book they have a lot to learn."
— Neal Lipschutz
About This Episode
Neal Lipschutz grew up in Brooklyn as a big reader with a strong urge to write, and as a teenager he fell in love with the New York newspapers. Practicality won out: he spent more than four decades in journalism, first as a reporter and then mostly...
"The show started as a way for me to prove that I can get a stranger to tell me their story. And 500 episodes later, I think strangers have taught me more about mine." — Mike Carlon
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
For the 500th episode, Mike turns the microphone on himself. He goes back to 2011, when he was a brand-new focus group moderator who started a podcast because he couldn't show clients his proprietary work, and to the publicist...
BOUNCING BACK, WITH ELLEN HOLTZMAN
"It's confusing, it's awful, it's terrible, but you can survive it and you could actually have an even better life than you ever imagined."
— Ellen Holtzman
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Ellen Holtzman didn't grow up writing. She was a history graduate student who taught herself to write by working through The Elements of Style page by page. When her husband decided he didn't want children, and the...
"We do more damage to ourselves than any alien species could ever do to us. We kick our own asses every day." — Sal Amato
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Sal Amato has spent almost five decades in entertainment — he started as a kid actor in a 1978 Betty Crocker commercial, became one of the youngest members ever at Chicago's Second City, and has film and TV credits including The Untouchables, My Best Friend's Wedding, Chicago Ove...
"I'm about five years old and I'm so tired. I say, Abba, which is what I call my father, can you carry me? I'm so tired. And I remember him saying, Deanch, I can't carry you, but I'll carry you with my stories."
— Dena Schusterman
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Dena Schusterman was about five years old, walking a mile and a half to synagogue on Shabbat, too tired to go another step. She asked her father to carry her. He told her he ...
"Everyone has that thing inside of them that they could nurture, but maybe some people have been taught that they can't or they shouldn't because it's not valuable in society. But to me, everyone has that." - Zara Marielle
Zara Marielle was the kind of introverted kid who wrote plays and then talked everyone she knew into performing them. She'll tell you those plays were bad. What stuck was the impulse. After undergrad she cycled ...
"It's not selfish to want to find a sense of self. It's not selfish to really be pushing the question of what is deeply etched in my heart that leads me to take the decisions I take."
— Margaret Eastman Smith
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Margaret Eastman Smith was born into a remarkable and complicated inheritance. Her parents met inside Moral Re-Armament — the Christian-based global movement once known as the Oxford Group &md...
"What must it have felt like to be a white attorney defending a Black man in 1890, at the height of racism in the United States? I think there are lessons to be learned by those stories that we can tell about history in general." - Gerald Patnode
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Gerald Patnode has lived many lives - Navy veteran, police officer, serial entrepreneur, television host, political analyst, university professor, academic dean - and ...
"Good writing should help readers see their own experiences and feel their own emotions through the characters and ideally understand that they are not alone and that they can prevail, survive, triumph even. And the way that we do that is connection to other people." — Ginger Pinholster
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Ginger Pinholster returns to Uncorking a Story to talk about her third novel, THE TRAIN TO SANTA FE. A Pushcart Prize no...
"You really have to love the process. It can't be about, 'Oh, if I am an author, everyone will respect me so much.' You really have to love the process of it or there kind of isn't any point to doing it."
— Carol Snow
About This Episode
Carol Snow is the author of ten books spanning romantic comedy, young adult fiction, and now psychological thrillers. She holds a BA in psychology from Brown University and a master's in tea...
"You're not alone. You really have guidance and support available to you. For all those people that are sitting there in silos that are frustrated with life and feel like they could use a friend — they are there with you. You just need to open up to it." — Katherine Marie
Katherine Marie spent decades as a computer technology analyst — a world of algorithms, software installations, and zeros and ones. Then a road...
"I've been at the bottom of the mountain and I've looked up and it looked like the top was a million miles away and it felt like I couldn't do it a hundred times over. And I've taken that step and sometimes I don't look up, I just keep stepping, and eventually I look back and I've gained a little ground." — Nikki Mammano
Nikki Mammano's debut memoir Breaking Good is exactly what it sounds like — a play on Breaking Bad,...
"Imagine somebody who's been disconnected from this church and he's reignited. That fire is back, that spark is back. Imagine what that one person can do in his life. If that happens one time, the eighteen months it took to put this thing together will have been worth it." — Jim Carlon
Jim Carlon is a lawyer, army veteran, and lifelong Catholic whose twenty-five years of practice have shaped a deep commitment to wellness in ...
"It was just as important for me to write a love story where the woman falls back in love with herself as much as falling in love with a man." — Julee Balko
Julee Balko is a returning guest — an author, poet, and freelance writer whose third novel, Square Hearts, dropped this past May from Black Rose Writing. Mike and Julee pick up where they left off two years ago (her last visit was for The Me List) and dig into how ...
"It took me two and a half years to write a first draft. The second book? Six months. I think it is something that I became more comfortable doing — that confidence you get knowing that you can do it." — Jenn Bouchard
Jenn Bouchard is a returning guest and award-winning author whose publishing journey could be a novel in itself. A high school social studies teacher of twenty-six years, she wrote Palms on the Cape five ...
"Every AI agent has to have a happy history of growing up and cooperating with humans. That has got to be the guardrail." — Dr. Peter Solomon
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ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Dr. Peter Solomon is back on Uncorking a Story. A Columbia-trained physicist, five-time company founder, and holder of twenty patents, Peter turned to fiction to warn the next generation about existential threats — and the AI threat is accelerating faster...
PULL-OUT QUOTE
"I truly dreamed it up during my first nap as a new mom." — Dr. Kate Sorokas
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ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Dr. Kate Sorokas holds a PhD in health education and is a writer, speaker, and advocate for maternal mental health. Her debut novel, Through Her Eyes, is a thriller inspired by her real-life struggle with new motherhood — a story she literally dreamed up during her first nap after having her sons. Kate ...
"I wrote a book and tried to find an agent and did not succeed. I wrote a second book that got an agent and no sales. I wrote a third book — it didn't even get nice rejection letters. I wrote a fourth book and it sold in three days." — April Henry
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ABOUT THIS EPISODE
April Henry is the New York Times bestselling author of over thirty mysteries and thrillers, including Girl Stolen, Girl Forgotten, and Two Truths an...
"I went to bed a victim and I woke up the next day and just something was different. I just surrendered. I knew that I couldn't do this anymore." — Marci Hopkins
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ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Marci Hopkins is an award-winning television host, author, and mental health advocate. She's the creator and host of Wake Up with Marcy, which has earned three Telly Awards and two Anthem Awards for excellence in social impact. Ten and a hal...
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