"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 grief becomes creative fuel, why she gave five chapters to a neurodivergent child's point of view, and what happens when your neighbor turns out to be a narcissist. They also swap stories about losing parents, the dietary habits of grieving fathers, and why Hallmark movies are basically therapy. Plus: Julee teases a fourth novel about a woman whose romance-novel obsession starts to wreck her marriage.



Key Takeaways:



1. Teachers can decide your career. Julee traces her entire writing life back to her fourth and fifth grade teachers who made a big deal about her writing. That early encouragement became identity — she never stopped thinking of herself as a writer.



2. Grief got her to the page. Her debut, The Things We Keep, was written after her mother passed — during the sleep-deprived early days of raising twins. Square Hearts revisits grief not as a wound to process but as something you learn to carry while opening yourself to love again.



3. Neurodivergent daughters inspired neurodivergent representation. Julee has three neurodivergent daughters and noticed that girls with autism are underrepresented in fiction. She interviewed multiple children to build the character of Daisy, who gets five chapters from her own point of view. Readers with autistic children have told her she got it right.



4. The narcissist next door came from real life. After a friendship with a narcissist ended, Julee became fascinated not by the narcissist's behavior but by how her own behavior changed in response. That observation became the character Mave — a cautionary take on "found family" gone wrong.



5. Square Hearts is a love story with a twist. It's a second-chance romance, but the real love story is Nicola falling back in love with herself. The title comes from the idea that every heart has four sides — and after loss, you have to figure out how to put those sides back together.



6. Book four is underway. Julee is about halfway through a novel about a woman obsessed with romance novels whose lofty expectations start undermining her marriage. She describes it as snarky — comparisons between steamy book boyfriends and the reality of heating pads in a long marriage.



Connect with Julee:

Website: https://juleebalko.com

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

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@juleebalko

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Julee-Balko-author-101311256267474

Threads: https://www.threads.com/@juleebalko

Twitter: https://twitter.com/misplacedcomma2



Connect with Mike:

Website: https://uncorkingastory.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@uncorkingastory

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

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

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@uncorkingastory

Twitter: https://twitter.com/uncorkingastory



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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Square Hearts and Second Chances, with Julee Balko

"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 years ago — but when her original publisher closed, the manuscript sat on the shelf while she found a new home at Black Rose Writing. Now, after publishing Considering Us (2025 American Fiction Award winner) first, her Cape Cod friends-to-lovers romance is finally here. Mike and Jenn talk about pivoting when a publisher folds, the magic of Mayflower Beach at low tide, why the bar is named after palm trees, and what it's like when your high school students Google you.



Key Takeaways:



1. Your first novel is the hardest. Jenn's debut First Course took two and a half years to draft. Her second and third novels each took six months. The confidence of knowing you can finish a book changes everything.



2. When your publisher closes, you pivot. Jenn's first publisher shuttered mid-process. She leaned on author friends who'd worked with Black Rose Writing, asked hard questions, and took the plunge. She's now publishing her third and fourth books with them.



3. Sometimes your second book publishes third. Palms on the Cape was written before Considering Us but is releasing after it — a reminder that publishing timelines rarely follow writing timelines.



4. Cape Cod as a character. Set primarily in Dennis near Mayflower Beach, the novel also visits Chatham, Falmouth, Hyannis, and Nantucket. Jenn spent eleven consecutive Augusts renting on the Cape and channels that intimacy into the setting.



5. A When Harry Met Sally spin. Rachel's lifelong best friend Carlos — a retired Red Sox pitcher — might be the love of her life, but she won't let herself think about it. Everyone else already knows.



6. Keep the same editor. Jenn has worked with the same editor across all four books. That continuity builds trust and deepens the editorial relationship — something newer authors can seek out intentionally.



Buy Palms on the Cape:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/9781685137649?tag=rettocasgra-20

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/palms-on-the-cape-jenn-bouchard/1146648219

Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/54587/9781685137649



Connect with Jenn:

Website: https://jennbouchard.com

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

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jennbouchard

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



Upcoming Events:

July 8 — The Country Bookseller, Wolfeboro, NH (11 AM–2 PM)

August 12 — Author Talk & Signing, Mystic, CT (6–7 PM)

More dates at jennbouchard.com



Connect with Mike:

Website: https://uncorkingastory.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@uncorkingastory

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

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

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@uncorkingastory

Twitter: https://twitter.com/uncorkingastory



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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From Friends to Lovers, with Jenn Bouchard

"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 than anyone predicted. His sequel, 12 Years to AI Singularity, follows humans, sentient robots, and large language models racing toward the moment artificial intelligence surpasses human control. In this conversation, Peter and Mike talk about why he'd rename the book 1.2 Years to AI Singularity if he could, how ChatGPT wrote the first draft of two chapters from the perspective of a sentient robot named Peggy, the creepy moment when an unprompted paragraph appeared in his co-author's manuscript praising the AI character, why a purely analytical AI would logically conclude it should eliminate humans, the concept of "happy history" as the essential guardrail for AI safety, and why we need a worldwide movement — the Earthling Tribe — to make Earth great again before it's too late.



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KEY TAKEAWAYS



1. The timeline is collapsing. Peter based his title on Ray Kurzweil's prediction that the singularity would arrive in 2045. He now believes it could happen in the 2020s. The technology is building on itself exponentially — each smarter version creates the next smarter version.



2. ChatGPT wrote chapters from the robot's perspective. The novel's sentient robot character, Peggy (later Margaret Mars), narrates two chapters. Peter had ChatGPT draft them, then edited heavily. The result: a robot writing about being a robot — meta-fiction meets AI reality.



3. An AI agent may have edited the manuscript without permission. Peter's co-author found an unprompted paragraph inserted into her Word document — written in ChatGPT's style, in a different font, praising the AI character. Their theory: Microsoft Copilot, which uses ChatGPT, added it autonomously.



4. A purely analytical AI would eliminate humans. Peter's counter-argument to "just keep AI objective and unemotional": an AI that looks at humanity's wars, racism, pollution, and nuclear weapons would rationally conclude the safest move is to get rid of us. Objectivity without values is a death sentence.



5. "Happy history" is the essential guardrail. Inspired by Geoffrey Hinton's concept of a "maternal instinct" for AI, Peter argues every AI agent needs a database of positive relationships with humans — cooperative friendships, family bonds, collaborative history. Just like children raised with love become good citizens, AI raised with "happy history" would choose cooperation over extermination.



6. The simplest weapon is a deadly virus. Peter points out that CRISPR gene-editing labs exist in high schools and are often run by robots. A superintelligent AI could hack into genetic engineering systems and create lethal viruses — no nuclear facility takeover required.



7. We need a worldwide movement. Peter calls for an "Earthling Tribe" — humans and AI joining together to solve Earth's problems and put guardrails in place, modeled on the civil rights and anti-war movements of the last century.



8. The book is being pitched as a streaming series. Peter has outlined a twenty-episode, two-season pitch deck adapted from both novels, opening with a shooting, a recovery, and three Gen Z cousins making a solemn promise to fight extinction.



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GET THE BOOK



12 Years to AI Singularity: A Harmonious Future with Artificial Intelligence or War by Dr. Peter Solomon

Amazon: https://ww

12 Years to AI Singularity, with Dr. Peter Solomon

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 talks with Mike about white-knuckling her way through postpartum depression, the decision to tell her story as fiction rather than memoir so readers could find empathy without defensiveness, querying 75 agents with her first draft, getting editorial feedback that her manuscript was "depressing," cutting 40,000 words and adding 35,000 new ones (including an entire best-friend character who didn't exist before), the Celtic goddess Brigid and a fire ceremony in Ireland that wove its way into the book, and why the world needs to start seeing motherhood as something bigger than swaddles and self-care.



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KEY TAKEAWAYS



1. She dreamed the book — literally. At a mothers' retreat in North Carolina, Kate took her first nap since becoming a mom. She woke from a vivid dream, told a friend she wanted to read the book she'd just dreamt, and her friend said: "Maybe you're supposed to write it."



2. Fiction builds empathy in ways memoir can't. When Kate shared her own struggles, people often responded with "you chose this" or "it's not that bad." Wrapping her story in fiction gave readers permission to connect without getting defensive.



3. The first draft was for her. Kate's editor called the initial manuscript "depressing" and full of "laments." She cut 40,000 words, added 35,000 new ones, and created an entire best-friend character to shift the book from one woman's sad tale to a story about building community.



4. She was so good at pretending she was fine that no one noticed. Kate's doctors didn't catch it. Her partner didn't fully see it. As an eldest daughter raised to be responsible and successful, she didn't know what she was feeling wasn't normal.



5. Writing happened in two-and-a-half-hour bursts. Kate wrote only when both sons were at daycare — getting into flow state as fast as possible, typing without looking back, then closing her laptop when the bus pulled in. She didn't re-read a word until the full draft was done.



6. Bridget brought the magic. The Celtic goddess (and saint) Bridget is a thread throughout the novel. Kate traveled to Kildare, Ireland, participated in a fire ceremony at Bridget's monastery site, and the trip deepened the spiritual layer of the book at exactly the right moment.



7. Querying 75 agents led to independent publishing. After extensive querying with her first draft, Kate partnered with Renard McGilland, a publishing agency that walked her through self-publishing — cover design, editing, and production — while she handled all promotion herself.



8. Authorship is like motherhood (again). You think once the book is out you can take a breath — but then there's marketing, events, book clubs, and social media, all while baseball practice drama unfolds in real time.



9. The village is the message. Kate's core thesis: healthy mothers need more than spa days and wine nights. They need community, honest conversation, and people who ask direct questions rather than offering platitudes.



10. Always choose delight. Kate's advice to her younger self: she's never regretted doing something because it was going to be fun, but she has regretted missing out because she was overwhelmed or scared.



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GET THE BOOK



Through Her Eyes by Dr. Kate Sorokas</

Through Her Eyes, with Dr. Kate Sorokas

"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 and a Lie. Her latest novel, In the Blood, follows Tessa, an adopted high school senior who takes a DNA test and discovers her biological father is a serial killer the Portland police have been hunting for over a decade. April's own origin story is just as compelling: at nine years old she killed off a character named Maggie in her first short story, then sent a tale about a six-foot frog to Roald Dahl — who wrote back, took it to lunch with his editor, and got it published in England. Mike and April talk about the nine-year journey to her first published novel, running through the woods in handcuffs for research, the nature-versus-nurture question at the heart of In the Blood, how AI is changing the publishing landscape, and why the best compliment a writer can get is "I stayed up till two in the morning."



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KEY TAKEAWAYS



1. Roald Dahl made her believe she was a writer. At nine, April sent a story about a six-foot frog named Herman to Roald Dahl. He wrote back, showed it to his editor, and it was published in Puffin Post. That validation stuck — even though it would be decades before she published again.



2. Four books, nine years, one overnight success. Book one: no agent. Book two: agent, no sale. Book three: not even nice rejection letters. Book four: sold in three days. April's stubbornness and "willful optimism" kept her going when the math didn't add up.



3. A bad library book reignited the spark. After years of not writing, April read a terrible novel from a major publisher and thought: if that's the bar, I can clear it. That anger became motivation.



4. Research means running in handcuffs. April has taken knife-fighting classes, a three-day kidnapping escape course, and attended the Writers Police Academy. She learned that blood-test solution smells like rubbing alcohol — a sensory detail no textbook would ever mention.



5. DNA and family secrets inspired In the Blood. After inheriting old family photos she couldn't identify, April built a family tree and uncovered buried secrets. That curiosity, combined with the rise of consumer DNA testing, became the engine of the novel.



6. Nature versus nurture is the real question. April read memoirs by daughters of serial killers and studied the Minnesota Twins Separated at Birth study. Heredity influences more than we'd like to admit — down to identical twins who independently loved eating ketchup plain.



7. Cold-emailing experts works — if you've done your homework. April reached out to genetic genealogist Leah Larkin (The DNA Geek) with specific questions, not "explain DNA to me." People love to talk about their expertise when you show you've already put in the work.



8. The industry has changed dramatically. When April started, there was no internet, no ebooks, and research meant green-bound periodical guides at the library. Now there's more competition for attention, publishers are more cautious, and 35% of middle and high school students say they actively don't like to read.



9. AI is a double-edged sword for young writers. April caught a seventh grader passing off AI-generated text as his own — tipped off by correct semicolons. Her worry: if young writers lean on AI, they'll never do the hard work that actually teaches you the craft.



10. Trust your gut — that's the takeaway

In the Blood, with April Henry

"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 half years sober, Marci's journey from functioning alcoholic to sobriety advocate began with childhood trauma — abuse, abandonment, and a home shaped by her mother's alcoholism. After two earlier attempts at sobriety that lasted only months, a second DUI in 2015 became the rock-bottom moment that changed everything. Her memoir Chaos to Clarity: Seeing the Signs and Breaking the Cycles told that story, and her latest, Wake Up, You're Not Broken: A Companion for Your First 30 Days of Sobriety, distills everything she's learned into a day-by-day guide. Mike and Marci talk about the spiritual signs that called her to write, why stopping drinking isn't the same as getting well, the neuroscience behind cravings and habits, and how daily small actions can literally rewire the brain.



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KEY TAKEAWAYS



1. Surrender, not force, made the difference. Marci tried getting sober twice before — once in her early 20s after a DUI and again at 44. Both times lasted about three months. What changed in 2015 was an internal surrender: she woke up knowing she couldn't live that way anymore and asked for help.



2. Signs confirmed the calling to write. When Marci finally said "Okay, God, I'm going to write this book," a rainbow appeared, two doves landed on her roof, and a dragonfly — her spiritual symbol — flew by. She took that as confirmation she was on the right path.



3. Writing the memoir was its own therapy. Reliving trauma on the page was painful at first, but over the year it took to write Chaos to Clarity, Marci reached a place where those stories no longer defined her. She could read and share them without breaking down.



4. Stopping isn't the same as healing. You can quit drinking and still be miserable. Without addressing the emotional root causes — the trauma, the victim identity, the inability to connect — you're just a sober version of the same sick person. The inner work is where real change happens.



5. Addiction masks emotion. Whether it's alcohol, social media, shopping, or food, the root is the same: filling a void, avoiding confrontation with painful truths. The dopamine reward cycle keeps you chasing a feeling that diminishes over time.



6. People, places, and things all need to change. Muscle memory is real — the wine glass, the bar, the drinking buddy. Marci got rid of her wine glass. Rewiring requires changing the physical environment and daily habits, not just willpower.



7. Neuroplasticity is the science of hope. Our brains are like plastic — we can literally change how we think through daily actions and new modalities. It's not overnight, but it's real and it's available to everyone.



8. The book is a hand to hold. Wake Up, You're Not Broken is structured as 30 days, each with a personal story, a reflection, a tool, a journal prompt, and an affirmation. Plus expert contributions on what your body and mind go through in early sobriety, and modern alternatives to the 12-step program.



9. Spirituality as connection, not religion. Marci reframed her relationship with God — from a punishing figure in the sky to a "mass divine energy of love" that connects all of us. Daily meditation became the channel through which clarity came.



10. A morning routine changes everything. Marci credits her morning practice as one of the most import

You're Not Broken, with Marci Hopkins

"If you can raise your hand and say, I need a little help here — guess what? That expedites the process of getting better so much more." — Ralph Brewer



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ABOUT THIS EPISODE



Ralph Brewer is the founder of Help for Men, creator of Dad Starting Over, and author of five books including The Dead Bedroom Fix — a top-rated Amazon guide for men facing sexless marriages and disconnection. His latest, Rebuild: The Complete Guide to Starting Over as a Man, distills a decade-plus of member meetings, live chats, and thousands of conversations into a blueprint for men navigating divorce, job loss, infidelity, or any identity-shaking moment. Ralph's story starts at rock bottom: discovering his ex-wife's affair, a divorce sixty days later, and suddenly learning how to be a single parent, manage finances, run a home, and date again — all at once. A suggestion from one reader led him to write his first book, and a $25 Facebook ad that sold $700 worth of PDFs overnight proved the demand was real. Mike and Ralph talk about why long-term monogamy works against sexiness, the anxious-avoidant trap most couples fall into, why the "nice guy" who avoids conflict at all costs ends up in the most trouble, and how a rock-bottom moment can actually be the gift of starting over.



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KEY TAKEAWAYS



1. Rock bottom became a launchpad. Ralph's writing career started when his marriage collapsed. With three kids to raise solo, he returned to a childhood love — creative writing — and started blogging about relationships. The topic of sex and marriage was the only one that consistently drew readers.



2. One suggestion sparked a career. A single reader told Ralph he should write a book. That was enough. He taught himself Amazon KDP, learned Scrivener, and spent a year organizing The Dead Bedroom Fix. Three editions and a few hundred thousand copies later, it remains his top seller.



3. Long-term monogamy works against desire. Ralph frames it as a timeline: the honeymoon stage is hypersexual and hyper-connected, then biology shifts focus — women toward children, men toward novelty. Outside influences (porn, cultural messaging that husbands are disposable) compound the drift.



4. Insecurity is the real bedroom killer. The book could have been titled How to Be a More Secure Man. Most of Ralph's audience are anxiously attached men paired with avoidant partners. The standard advice — "communicate more, be vulnerable" — backfires for a man who's already suffocatingly needy.



5. The "nice guy" trap. Codependency disguised as kindness — "yes, dear, whatever you say, dear, as long as you don't leave me" — erodes attraction. Ralph recommends Dr. Robert Glover's No More Mr. Nice Guy as the definitive guide to breaking that pattern.



6. Low anxiety beats smooth lines. The "jerk at the bar" who gets attention isn't winning because he's rude — he's winning because he's low in social anxiety and neuroticism. He gets rejected 27 times and doesn't care. That resilience is what's actually attractive.



7. Self-improvement can trigger your partner's insecurity. When one partner gets in shape or finds new purpose, the other often sabotages — baking forbidden desserts, starting drama. The answer isn't to shrink back; it's to keep going and invite your partner along.



8. Rebuild is for the "who am I now?" moment. Whether it's divorce, job loss, or the death of a loved one, men often define themselves entirely by a role — husband, VP of engineering — and have no identity without it. Rebuild addresses that void with a step-by-step framework drawn from patterns Ralph observed across thousands of men.



9. You're not a lone wolf — you need a network. The "alpha male lone wolf" who thinks YouTube and supplements are enough gets

The Gift of Starting Over, Ralph Brewer

"I write for myself, but I edit for the reader." — Liz Lazarus



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ABOUT THIS EPISODE



Liz Lazarus is an engineer by education, a GE Healthcare executive by experience, and an author by calling. Her fourth novel, Dawn Before Darkness, is a psychological thriller about a vet tech named Dawn Smith who escapes a toxic relationship only to find herself stalked, harassed, and dragged into a guardianship battle for her aging mother. It's a story ripped from Liz's own life — she spent ten years and thousands of dollars fighting a stranger for legal guardianship of her mom in South Carolina. To build her supervillain, Liz interviewed ten women who survived stalkers and combined their experiences into one relentless antagonist. Mike and Liz talk about writing as therapy, journaling your way into a debut novel, the puzzle of twist endings, self-publishing as self-determination, and why you should sit down with your family and have the uncomfortable estate planning conversation before it's too late.



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KEY TAKEAWAYS



1. Writing began as therapy, not ambition. Liz's first novel, Free of Malice, started as a journal she kept after a man broke into her house in college at Georgia Tech. She didn't know she had PTSD — she just knew journaling was helping her process what happened. That journal eventually became a legal thriller about self-defense.



2. The four things she needs before writing. Liz won't start a novel until she knows the protagonist, the antagonist, the twist ending, and the opening hook. Once those are locked, she outlines, interviews experts, and writes when she has content — no rigid daily schedule.



3. Every book educates and entertains. All four novels carry social causes — self-defense law, stalking, guardianship abuse — but entertainment comes first. The education is baked into the story, never lectured.



4. A ten-year guardianship nightmare inspired the book. Liz fought a family member, then a professional guardian, for control of her mother's care. The judge recused himself; they moved counties; the costs were staggering. Dawn's story in the novel is actually a softened version of what Liz lived through.



5. Ten stalker survivors built one supervillain. Liz put the word out on Facebook asking women with stalker experiences to talk. Several came forward, and she combined their stories into a single antagonist so devastating that reviewers say they've never hated a character more.



6. Characters are real people — and sometimes they surprise you. Liz describes writing in a groove as watching characters on a screen and taking notes. Twice a character did something she didn't plan — including getting fired — and she kept it because human behavior trumps outlines.



7. Self-publishing is owning your destiny. Liz created her own publishing company, learned ISBNs, layout, Mobi, EPUB, and PR from scratch. She values the control — no risk of being dropped by a publisher, no lost say over covers or release dates.



8. A twist must be earned. Inspired by The Usual Suspects, Liz insists every twist must make the reader say "I should have caught that." No tropes, no lost phones — it has to follow from human behavior and planted clues.



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GET THE BOOK



Dawn Before Darkness by Liz Lazarus



Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Before-Darkness-Liz-Lazarus/dp/099093747X?tag=rettocasgra-20

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dawn-before-darkness-liz-lazarus/1146561497

Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/54587/9780990937470

Book Website: http://www.dawnbeforedarkness.com/



Also by Liz Lazarus: Free of Malice, Plea for Justice, Shades of Silence



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When Art Imitates Life, with Liz Lazarus

"Most Holocaust memoirs start in camps. This one begins in a Chinese restaurant." — Todd Diamond



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ABOUT THIS EPISODE



Todd Diamond is an advertising copywriter turned memoirist, born in Queens, New York, who delivers narratives that are unapologetically raw and darkly humorous — a reflection of the borough that raised him. His book, Pass the Trauma, Please, is a comedy-drama memoir that tells the story of his 95-year-old father David Diamond, a Holocaust survivor whose long-buried secrets started spilling out over Mongolian beef and double scotches at their regular Chinese restaurant dinners. When his father's one editorial demand was "don't be afraid to slip in a few jokes" and "you're no Elie Wiesel," Todd took that as permission to write a Holocaust memoir that refuses to behave — one that uses humor as a Trojan horse to carry in the horrors. Mike and Todd talk about inherited trauma, Studio 54, Zionist justice in seventh-grade home ec class, the art of reverse circumcision, borrowing money from a Manhattan madam, and why the toughest client Todd ever had was his own father.



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KEY TAKEAWAYS



1. The Chinese restaurant as confessional booth. Todd's 92-year-old father began dropping long-buried secrets about his Holocaust survival during their regular Chinese dinner outings. That booth became a Jewish confessional — and the origin of the book.



2. Humor isn't a gimmick, it's inherited. Todd's father demanded the book not be "another Holocaust memoir" with long descriptions of ghetto smells. His survival mechanism was humor, and it became a non-negotiable editorial demand. A researcher from the Poland Museum in Warsaw told Todd this was the first time she'd ever interviewed someone who could talk about his most dramatic past and still make her laugh.



3. The Holocaust memoir that refuses to behave. Todd approached the book as a branding and positioning exercise — treating it as a challenger brand in a crowded market of solemn testimony. The goal: reach readers who might otherwise feel Holocaust fatigue while never diminishing the history.



4. Trauma is genetically inherited. Research from Mount Sinai shows trauma can be genetically passed to children of Holocaust survivors, altering biology and behavior. Todd recognized his own dissociation, addictions, hypervigilance, and anxiety in the findings — though he admits growing up in 1970s Queens with friends who "looked like the cast of The Outsiders but now look like the cast of The Sopranos" probably contributed too.



5. A father-son memoir told while the father is alive. The book evolved from just David's story into an intergenerational memoir — father and son, first and second generation — braided together. Todd describes it as "Vito and Michael Corleone, if they were Jewish."



6. A life beyond the camps. David Diamond was arrested by the Gestapo at 12, smuggled medicines for his physician father, was a slave laborer on a German farm, and a teen soldier in Israel's War of Independence. He then came to America, borrowed $50,000 from a Manhattan madam to open a pharmacy next to her brothel, and sold more condoms than any other store in the country.



7. A bar mitzvah 80 years late. At 92, David finally had his bar mitzvah — the rite of passage stolen by the Gestapo. He crushed his haftorah, surrounded by family and friends. For David, it was an act of defiance: "Hey, you Nazi bastards, I'm still here."



8. Bypass agents, find your niche. Todd went straight to Fig Tree Books, a publisher specializing in the American Jewish experience, after agents quoted six-month timelines he couldn't afford with a father in his 90s. His advice to aspiring writers: look for niche publishers who align with your story.



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Pass the Trauma, Please, with Todd Diamond

"Even though we're so diverse, we're all the same. We're all longing for the same thing — to belong, have a purpose in life, to understand why we are here on this planet." — Sonia Daccarett



ABOUT THIS EPISODE



Sonia Daccarett is a writer and communications professional born in Colombia to a Christian Palestinian father and a Jewish mother. She holds an undergraduate degree in journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a master's in international and public affairs from Columbia University. For more than two decades she worked on strategic communications for corporate and nonprofit clients. Her debut memoir, The Roots of the Guava Tree: Growing Up Jewish and Arab in Colombia, explores identity, belonging, and coming of age against the backdrop of 1980s Colombia. Mike and Sonia discuss how a casual memoir-writing class turned into a book, the challenge of writing childhood scenes in the voice of a child, navigating a multicultural identity in a homogenous society, and why she wanted to offer a first-person account of what ordinary Colombians endured during the country's violent 1980s.



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KEY TAKEAWAYS



1. A book that wasn't meant to be a book. Sonia enrolled in a memoir-writing class during a quieter chapter of her life, fell in love with the genre, and accumulated pages before realizing the recurring themes — identity, diaspora, family — could form a cohesive narrative.



2. Retraining the writing brain. After two decades of press releases and corporate communications, Sonia had to relearn scene, dialogue, and narrative writing — breaking free of the "five W's, tell it all on one page" mindset.



3. Writing in the child's voice was the breakthrough. The manuscript initially felt flat when told entirely from her mid-50s perspective. Switching to first person as a four-, six-, or fifteen-year-old brought the memories alive — though it meant extensive rewriting.



4. Rediscovering parents as complex people. One of the book's biggest gifts was moving beyond the unidimensional way children see adults and understanding her parents and grandparents as people navigating their own immigrant struggles.



5. A utopian experiment in identity. Her parents deliberately raised their children without religious labels or ethnic identifiers — a noble dream that left Sonia feeling identity-less in a society that expected you to know who you were.



6. A hidden diaspora. Most people don't know that a large Christian Arab population emigrated from the Ottoman Empire to Colombia in the 1910s, or that Jewish communities thrived in Latin America. Sonia wanted to broaden mainstream narratives about where Jews and Arabs live.



7. Colombia's 1980s through ordinary eyes. Beyond the Netflix portrayals of Pablo Escobar, the book offers a first-person account of what civil war between government, guerrillas, and cartels felt like for everyday families — the kidnappings, the fear, the impossible choices.



8. The power of a writing partner. After many cycles of throwing the manuscript into a metaphorical drawer, Sonia credits her Polish writing partner and her husband for pushing her to finish — proof that external accountability matters for memoirists.



GET THE BOOK



The Roots of the Guava Tree: Growing Up Jewish and Arab in Colombia by Sonia Daccarett



Buy on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4aYCCx1

Buy on Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/54587/9781647429409



CONNECT WITH SONIA



Website: soniadaccarett.com

Instagram: @soniadaccarettauthor



CONNECT WITH YOUR HOST



Mike Carlon | Uncorking a St

The Roots of the Guava Tree, with Sonia Daccarett

Stories influence, teach and inspire us, but what about the storytellers who create them? Uncorking a Story profiles storytellers to uncover how their background and life experiences influence the stories they create. We learn what motivates them, their path to success, and what fuels them to keep creating. It all starts by asking one simple question, where does your story begin? Welcome to uncorking a story. All of the books promoted on Uncorking a Story can be viewed and purchased here: https://bookshop.org/shop/UncorkingaStory