Recently Uncorked
Till I Drop, with Joy Jordan Lake
One thing stayed with me after my conversation with Joy Jordan Lake. She opened up to me about how a fear of failure as a writer prevented her from fully embracing it as a career. Don’t get me wrong, most authors have a challenging time making ends meet solely by...
Leaving Home Behind, with Abdulrazak Gurnah
Prior to meeting Nobel Prize winning author Abdulrazak Gurnah a few weeks ago, the only thing I knew about his home country of Zanzibar was that Freddie Mercury was born there and Billy Joel wrote a song by that name, though I’m pretty sure it was about a nightclub in...
Flipping the Script, with Steve Borys
Do you wonder why bad things always seem to happen to good people? Do you want to know how to overcome adversity and become successful despite terrible odds? Would you like to know what a parkway on Long Island has to do with two evil dictators? Well, today’s Guest,...
Where the Sky Begins, with Rhys Bowen
Many years ago I was taking guitar lessons with a great teacher named Ken Volpe, or Master Ken as I liked to call him. When shooting the breeze over a song one day, I said to him, “I don’t like the solo. I would do something differently.” He said, “Oh really. Well,...
Love and Murder, with Alicia Thompson
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...
Mass Class, with Fr. Dave Dwyer, CSP
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...
Catching a Wave, with Lauren Forsythe
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...
From Outsider to Insider, with David Pepper
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...
Forgiveness is Freedom, with Giovanni Ruscitti
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...