Uncorking a Story

"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 TaylorABOUT THIS EPISODEMachan 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 Brand New Day tour in 1999 and 2000. Years of talk therapy for childhood trauma had taken her only so far. When COVID hit, she began psychedelic-assisted therapy with a trained psychologist, and the journaling that came out of that work grew, over about three years, into 60,000 words and her memoir, Naked Out Loud. Machan talks with Mike about what life on the road really looked like behind the private jets and five-star hotels, why holding the finished book finally let her let go of the embarrassment, and how a screen actors' strike pushed her into teaching, back to college in her fifties, and on to a job at NYU's Clive Davis Institute.KEY TAKEAWAYS1. You don't have to set out to write a book to end up with one. Machan's memoir began as journaling during therapy, with no plan to publish. About three years in, she realized she had 60,000 words, and a friend connected her with a small publisher of music memoirs.2. Putting your story on the page gives you distance from it. Once her words were outside her head and on the screen, Machan found she could look at them almost objectively. As she puts it, it's you, but it's not you, and that shift was part of her healing.3. The vulnerability is scariest right before you let go. Handing the manuscript to her publisher left her asking whether she really wanted to do this. Holding the printed book changed that: she felt liberated, and the embarrassment she had carried for years simply loosened its grip.4. Other people's judgment isn't yours to carry. With her 70th birthday a week away, Machan says she no longer cares how readers judge her stories. There will always be critics; that's on them. She wrote the book for herself, and hopes her honesty helps others tell their own stories.5. A glamorous life can hide real struggle. On tour she played to crowds of 20,000 to 100,000 people, but underneath she was fighting imposter syndrome, insecurity and the feeling of not being good enough. After the show, you go back to a hotel room alone, and that loneliness is why so many musicians turn to drugs and alcohol.6. Healing can come from places you didn't expect. Traditional talk therapy couldn't get Machan past her childhood trauma. Working with a trained professional, she found that psychedelic-assisted therapy quieted her ego enough to sit with old pain and work through it.7. It's never too late to go back to school. Machan started working so young that she never finished college. She earned her bachelor's degree in her fifties, went on to a master's at NYU, and now teaches at the university's Clive Davis Institute.GET THE BOOKNaked Out Loud: From Yokohama to Pink Floyd and Beyondby Machan TaylorNew Haven Publishing Ltd · December 15, 2025 · ISBN 9781915975287Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G675WBR6?tag=rettocasgra-20Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/54587/9781915975287Support your local indie bookstore — if it's not on the shelf, ask them to order it.CONNECT WITH MACHANWebsite: https://www.machantaylor.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/machantaylorofficialFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/machantaylor/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/machan-taylor-810196156/CONNECT WITH YOUR HOSTMike Carlon | Uncorking a StoryWebsite: https://uncorkingastory.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@uncorkingastoryInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/uncorkingastory/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uncorkingastoryTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@uncorkingastoryTwitter/X: https://twitter.com/uncorkingastoryLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/uncorking-a-story/SUBSCRIBE & LEAVE A REVIEWIt helps more readers and writers find the show!Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/uncorking-a-story/id563636205Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5HZiAEtFlhAzk60Z4eAkhYUncorking a Story is produced by Mike Carlon. New episodes drop every Tuesday. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

 "Even people who have been writing fiction for a long time feel that from book to book they have a lot to learn."— Neal LipschutzAbout This EpisodeNeal 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 as an editor, including a stint as deputy editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal. Only after retiring did he take up fiction full-time, treating it as a new job he showed up for every day. Neal talks with Mike about which newsroom habits carried over to fiction and which he had to unlearn, what it felt like to be on the other side of the editor's desk, and why he finished his first novel before looking for a publisher. He also introduces Long Arm of the Past, the sequel to his debut No Write Way to Die. In it, management consultant Scott Morgan investigates the suspicious death of his firm's former chairman, and his partner is the retired NYPD detective who was his antagonist in book one. Along the way, the secrets Scott buried in the first book start working their way back to the surface.Key TakeawaysThe clarity that journalism demands carries straight over to fiction. Decades of making copy clear, precise and accurate gave Neal skills he uses on every page. In his view, even great fiction is often simple and fairly straightforward.Former journalists have to give themselves permission to let go. A clean, clear sentence isn't always enough in a novel. Neal pushes himself to get into his characters' heads and to allow some flourish in key descriptions, without overdoing it.Be the writer you would want to edit. After editing other people's work for a living, Neal went into his own edits determined to be open-minded and cooperative, as a novice with a lot to learn. Even small conventions, like how quotes and paragraphs are set up, work differently in a novel than in a newspaper.Developmental edits are a conversation, not an order. Feedback on plot or character is a free lesson, not an attack. Most editors will hear you out if you disagree, as long as you make your case.Finish the book before you go looking for a publisher. Neal wrote No Write Way to Die in full before approaching anyone. For him, making the manuscript as strong as possible was "job one," and the search for a publisher came after.Every book in a series should stand on its own. Neal wants a reader who starts with book two to understand everything and enjoy it. That means referring to what happened earlier without spoiling book one for anyone who goes back to read it.Place shapes character. Scott Morgan's affluent Westchester suburb is only a few miles from the Brooklyn neighborhood he grew up in, but in Neal's words the psychic distance is huge. New York and its surroundings drive both the crimes and the people in the series.Get the BookLong Arm of the Past by Neal Lipschutz Publisher: Tucker DS Press Release date: August 2026 ISBN: 9781959748502AmazonBookshop.orgSupport your local indie bookstore — if it's not on the shelf, ask them to order it.Connect with NealWebsite: neallipschutz.comInstagram: @nlipschutzTikTok: @neal2841Twitter/X: @NLipschutzLinkedIn: Neal LipschutzConnect with Your HostMike Carlon | Uncorking a StoryWebsite: uncorkingastory.comYouTube: @uncorkingastoryInstagram: @uncorkingastoryFacebook: Uncorking a StoryTikTok: @uncorkingastoryTwitter/X: @uncorkingastorySubscribe & Leave a Review — It helps more readers and writers find the show!Apple PodcastsSpotifyUncorking a Story is produced by Mike Carlon. New episodes drop every Tuesday. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

"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 CarlonABOUT THIS EPISODEFor 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 who told him to make the show about authors. From there he walks through what 500 conversations have taught him: where writing careers really begin, why there's no such thing as an overnight success, and why it's never too late to start. He also gets personal about losing his brother Greg and his mother a year and a month apart, how writing carried him through it, and the 3 a.m. "download" that became The Waiting Room. And he finally answers the question he's asked every guest: what would you whisper to your younger self?KEY TAKEAWAYS1. Most writing careers start with a grown-up who noticed. When Mike asks guests where their story as an author begins, he expects book deals and hears about childhood instead. April Henry mailed a story to Roald Dahl at nine, and he wrote back. Kara Ruda's school librarian laminated her first little book and put it on the shelf. If you're a parent, teacher or librarian, what you did for a kid decades ago may be chapter one of their career.2. There are no overnight successes. In 500 episodes, Mike has yet to meet a guest who had no turbulence on the road to publication. April Henry's fourth book sold in three days, after nine years of trying. Camille Di Maio's debut took four years, 43 rejections and 17 drafts. And as K Smith Blum put it, better rejections are still progress.3. It's never too late. Some of Mike's most moving conversations are with people who found their voice in their 60s and 70s, after retiring, raising kids or a career that had nothing to do with books. Iris Mittlin Lav decided to write at 72. If you've been sitting on a story because you think the window has closed, 500 episodes say otherwise.4. Everyone is creative. Mike dreaded art class even more than gym, and spent years believing creativity meant crayons and talent he didn't have. Zara Marielle changed that: everyone has something inside them worth nurturing; some people have just been taught it isn't valuable. Nine books later, Mike agrees.5. Write from the scar, not the wound. Memoirists Mike interviews nearly always describe writing their hardest chapter as cathartic. The ones who tell the hardest stories well tend to wait until the wound has scarred over. And not everything has to be published: therapist Lauren Tettenbaum tells clients to write it all down, curse words included, and just not hit send.6. Grief is the price of love, and fiction can heal too. Mike talks openly about losing his brother Greg to lung cancer and his mother a year and a month later. Writing didn't end the grief, but it helped, and he's come to believe that's as true for fiction as for memoir. Stacey Bass gave him the line he still uses: grief is the price of love.7. Sometimes the story comes through you. Sick in a guest bedroom at 3 a.m. one Christmas, Mike started getting "downloads" of a story he had no plan to write. It became The Waiting Room, his most successful book, and only when writing the back cover did he notice his characters were Mary and Joseph, at Holy Family Hospital, on Christmas Eve. Other guests describe the same experience, and it's changed how he thinks of writing: some days it's closer to prayer.GET THE BOOKThe Waiting Room by Mike CarlonPublisher: Uncorking a Story PublishingRelease date: May 27, 2025ISBN: 9781732184695Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732184690?tag=rettocasgra-20Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/54587/9781732184695Support your local indie bookstore — if it's not on the shelf, ask them to order it.CONNECT WITH YOUR HOSTMike Carlon | Uncorking a StoryWebsite: https://uncorkingastory.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@uncorkingastoryInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/uncorkingastory/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uncorkingastoryTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@uncorkingastoryTwitter/X: https://twitter.com/uncorkingastorySubscribe & Leave a Review — It helps more readers and writers find the show!Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/uncorking-a-story/id563636205Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5HZiAEtFlhAzk60Z4eAkhYUncorking a Story is produced by Mike Carlon. New episodes drop every Tuesday.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 HoltzmanABOUT THIS EPISODEEllen 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 then that he didn't want the marriage, her plans for an academic career fell apart along with it. She couldn't find a tenure-track job and had to support herself, so she went back to school for a second doctorate and became a psychotherapist. Years later, after her son left for college, she took writing courses at Grub Street in Boston. There she learned to tell stories instead of making arguments. Bouncing Back weaves her own divorce together with the stories of two of her therapy clients: Lisa, fifty, whose husband of thirty years kept returning to an affair, and Megan, thirty, whose husband told her he didn't want a second child. Ellen tells all three stories twice, once as a memoirist living through it and once as a therapist asking what it all means. In this conversation she talks about why she couldn't have written the book in the first ten years, how women lose themselves in marriage, and the recurring dream that finally stopped once the book was done.KEY TAKEAWAYS1. Writing can be learned, even if you were never a "natural." Ellen says plainly that she wasn't a good writer and didn't always write. As a grad student she sat down with The Elements of Style and a grammar textbook and worked through a paper sentence by sentence, following it like a recipe. Later she learned story structure the same way, one course at a time.2. You can't write the story while you're still in the wound. Ellen believes that if she had tried to write the book within ten years of her divorce, it would have read like a journal: raw venting that no reader wants to sit through. Distance is what turns pain into a story someone else can use.3. Losing yourself in marriage often looks like accommodation, not abuse. Compromise is necessary, but Ellen sees many women become too accommodating, raised to please and unsure it's okay to be assertive. Her ex-husband went silent when he was angry, and she grew afraid to speak up or advocate for herself.4. If a couple can't argue well, the marriage is in trouble. Looking back, Ellen isn't surprised her husband walked out. He never told her what bothered him, so years of anger built up unspoken while she assumed everything was fine. Learning to disagree constructively is a skill most people never get taught.5. Surviving the "unsurvivable" becomes a lasting source of confidence. At the time, Ellen thought her life was over. Getting through it gave her something to look back on whenever something else felt impossible. She also saw many women come out of divorce feeling like a different person, with abilities they didn't know they had.6. Writing can heal what time alone doesn't. For decades Ellen had what she called her "divorce dream," in which someone was leaving her. After she wrote the book, the dream never came back. She believes working through the story in such detail finally dissolved the shock that years alone hadn't touched.7. Recovery is slow, and that's not a failure. Clients often ask Ellen why they aren't better yet. Her answer is that the confusion and pain are normal, grief takes time, and the process has lessons of its own. The book's purpose is to make readers feel understood, and to show them a good life is waiting on the other side.GET THE BOOKBouncing Back: How Women Lose & Find Themselves in Marriage & Divorce by Ellen HoltzmanISBN: 9798989803118Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D6FTLGTJ?tag=returntocasag-20Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/54587/9798989803118Support your local indie bookstore — if it's not on the shelf, ask them to order it.CONNECT WITH ELLENWebsite: https://www.ellenholtzman.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100087660229588LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellen-holtzman-81b256314/Medium: https://medium.com/@eholtzman00/how-a-psychotherapist-helps-women-bounce-back-from-their-troubled-marriages-458cd1548f4eCONNECT WITH YOUR HOSTMike Carlon | Uncorking a StoryWebsite: https://uncorkingastory.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@uncorkingastoryInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/uncorkingastory/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uncorkingastoryTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@uncorkingastoryTwitter/X: https://twitter.com/uncorkingastorySubscribe & Leave a Review — It helps more readers and writers find the show!Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/uncorking-a-story/id563636205Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5HZiAEtFlhAzk60Z4eAkhYUncorking a Story is produced by Mike Carlon. New episodes drop every Tuesday.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

 "We do more damage to ourselves than any alien species could ever do to us. We kick our own asses every day." — Sal AmatoABOUT THIS EPISODESal 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 Overcoat, and Chicago Fire. On this episode he talks about his debut novel, Hidden Powers Disclosure from Within, a political sci-fi thriller built around the alleged 1954 Eisenhower UFO meeting. Sal traces his fascination with the unexplained back to childhood — Chariots of the Gods, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Star Wars — but he's quick to say the book isn't really about aliens. It's about tribalism, the algorithms and bots that keep us divided online, and the fact that people do more damage to each other than any outside force ever could. He also opens up about writing and revising the book while his mother was dying, and how his Second City improv training still shapes the way he writes and edits today.KEY TAKEAWAYS1. His debut novel uses a real conspiracy theory as its launchpad. Hidden Powers Disclosure from Within imagines what might actually have been discussed at the alleged 1954 Eisenhower meeting with extraterrestrials — and what it would have meant for a Cold War administration deciding whether, and how, to tell the public.2. The book isn't really about aliens — it's about us. Sal says the story is ultimately about "the damage we do to ourselves," pointing out that in the book, and in life, people cause each other more harm than any outside force ever could.3. He blames the algorithms, not just the people, for our divisions. Sal argues that social platforms are loaded with bots and manufactured engagement built to generate ad revenue, and that this manufactured outrage is what keeps people tribal and unwilling to question their own side.4. His Second City training still shapes how he writes. Sal got into Second City at seventeen (with a fake ID) after working on films like Bad Boys and Doctor Detroit, and he says improv's "power of yes" mindset is exactly how he approaches a first draft — keep the door open, keep building, and only later learn when to stop editing.5. He wrote through his mother's death. Sal's mom passed away on New Year's Eve without getting to read the finished book. He processed the loss by burying himself in work, including finishing the manuscript, and later realized that stepping away and coming back with fresh eyes made the book stronger.6. He beta-tested the book with 70 to 80 friends before finalizing it. Sal asked readers not to hold back, and says the near-universal reaction was surprise that the story isn't really the alien thriller they expected — it's about fanaticism and how hard it is to break free of the "team" you've already picked.CONNECT WITH SALWebsite: salamato.comInstagram: @salinchicagoTwitter/X: @hiddenpowersusaFacebook: @salamato711TikTok: @backinthedayshowYouTube: @hiddenpowersofficialCONNECT WITH YOUR HOSTMike Carlon | Uncorking a StoryWebsite: uncorkingastory.comYouTube: @uncorkingastoryInstagram: @uncorkingastoryFacebook: Uncorking a StoryTikTok: @uncorkingastoryTwitter/X: @uncorkingastorySubscribe & Leave a Review — It helps more readers and writers find the show!Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/uncorking-a-story/id563636205Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5HZiAEtFlhAzk60Z4eAkhYUncorking a Story is produced by Mike Carlon. New episodes drop every Tuesday. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.