Behind The Spine
168 episodes - English - Latest episode: 21 days ago -A podcast which finds learning opportunities for writers in the most unlikely of places. Hosted by Mark Heywood. Behind The Spine is an inkjockey production, and the audio accompaniment to The Writing Salon.
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Episodes
S9E12 The Puzzle Wood: Rosie Andrews on gothic storytelling
May 07, 2024 23:02 - 27 minutes - 38.2 MB“That experience of going under the ground and feeling how alienating it feels down there. That feeds very nicely into the sort of gothic ideas that we're talking about here, that sense of the past is oppressive.” – Rosie Andrews Somewhere on the border between Wales and England, Miss Catherine Symonds arrives at the shadowy Locksley Abbey to take on the role of governess. She’s traveling in disguise, because what she’s really after is uncovering the circumstances surrounding her sister Emi...
S9E11 Life Finds a Way: Sarah Agha on authentic narratives
May 01, 2024 13:07 - 29 minutes - 41 MB“Yes, there is oppression and hardship, but there’s also culture and joy and beauty and love and friendship. I think sometimes even we forget that there is life, and life always finds a way, even under occupation.” – Sarah Agha What gives you a sense of identity and makes you feel connected to your community, your people? The narratives we build through art are at the heart of these identities. As we explore in this episode, getting them right is crucial, especially if you are Palestinian t...
S9E10 One of the Good Guys: Araminta Hall on patriarchy and female fear
April 23, 2024 23:05 - 39 minutes - 54.4 MB“I've certainly met men like Cole and you are fooled by them because they're fooling themselves. They're so dangerous and insidious for that reason, because you are actually sucked in a bit” - Araminta Hall Are you “one of the good guys”, supportive of women’s rights and equality and opposed to gender injustice? This episode will make you think twice. Cole has escaped to the coast after his marriage imploded, and finds himself caught up in a media firestorm after two feminist activists go m...
S9E9 Death On The Thames: Alan Johnson on politics, the police and misogyny
April 16, 2024 23:05 - 39 minutes - 54.4 MB“This senior copper said to me, Well, you have to remember we're dealing with criminals who know no restraints at all, who are just absolutely hard bastards with no emotion and no compassion. We have to have a few of them in our ranks to balance it out.” - Alan Johnson Alan Johnson is a well-known name in British politics, having held a range of cabinet positions in both Blair and Brown governments, including Home Secretary and Secretary of State for Health. Utilising his insider knowledge,...
S9E8 Hard By A Great Forest: Leo Vardiashvili on lost family and a rediscovered homeland
April 09, 2024 23:05 - 29 minutes - 40.8 MB“I didn't get to see my family or Georgia for 17 years. So when I did go back, I found it really strange, really surreal. That was very emotional for me. So I started writing it really trying to make sense of it in my own head.” -Leo Vardiashvili Inspired by his own estrangement from his homeland, Leo Vardiashvili tells the story of a family torn apart as they wrestle with the events of the past. Hard By A Great Forest is told through the eyes of Saba, who is forced to leave London and ret...
S9E7 Compliance in the Wild: Christian Hunt, the consumer rights vigilante
April 02, 2024 23:05 - 41 minutes - 57.1 MB“I am probably the consumer from hell when it comes to this stuff, and I do like to believe that I’m fighting on behalf of other people. Some sort of consumer rights, compliance vigilante.” -Christian Hunt If you’ve ever spotted a road sign that makes no sense at all, or been sent round in circles trying to cancel a TV subscription, you’re not alone. Society relies on us complying with rules on a daily basis, but sometimes the rules laid out for us are confusing. Christian Hunt is an expe...
S9E6 A Sign of Her Own: Sarah Marsh on deafness and deaf history
March 27, 2024 00:05 - 26 minutes - 39.5 MB“There are many, many ways to be a deaf person, but the important thing is to think about the ways in which you embrace it” -Sarah Marsh The word ‘deaf’ encompasses so many different lived experiences. And by its very nature it’s hard to communicate what it means - what it feels like - to be deaf. But through writing, anything is possible. Sarah Marsh is the author of A Sign of Her Own: The vivid historical novel of a Deaf woman's role in the invention of the telephone. Through the novel’s...
S9E5 The Escape Room: L.D. Smithson on the Reality TV Show of Nightmares
March 20, 2024 09:19 - 30 minutes - 42.6 MB“What we want is people in extreme situations. We enjoy watching people pushed to their emotional limits.” - L.D. Smithson Have you ever watched a reality TV show and thought ‘I could do that’? It’s one thing watching the events unfold on-screen. It’s another thing entirely being in the thick of it, watching the essence of your personality unravel under the pressure. Now imagine the stakes were much higher. A game where death is a very real threat. The Escape Room is the latest novel from ...
S9E4 The Cypress Maze: Fiona Valpy on dual-timeline fiction, a war-time heroine and shared grief
March 13, 2024 00:05 - 33 minutes - 48.3 MB“She felt she had a duty to protect all these people. And the Villa very much became, for Iris, a refuge for everybody” - Fiona Valpy In the past, a wartime heroine shelters people from the ravages of war. In the modern era, the villa once used for refuge is up for demolition, and its extraordinary past may be the only thing that can save it. The Cypress Maze is the latest novel from prolific writer Fiona Valpy. As a dual-timeline novel, we spend time in both 1943 and 2015, at the Villa de...
S9E3 A Tattoo’s Story: Joelle Taylor on the female form, queer futurism and activism
March 06, 2024 00:05 - 40 minutes - 55.3 MB“They’re kind of flags mounted in occupied territory. That's the idea of a tattoo on the female form. Because the female form is a political space. It's a space of contention and conflict.” - Joelle Taylor A tattoo can tell the most profound story. Many have deep meanings to the people who wear them, and all of them serve as time capsules, allowing a person to revisit a moment in time again and again. Accomplished poet and playwright Joelle Taylor’s debut novel The Night Alphabet introduce...
S9E2 A Man of Understanding: Diana Janney on poetry, philosophy and fractured souls
February 28, 2024 00:05 - 26 minutes - 35.9 MB“What a great idea if, through this grieving process both of them could heal - could come to understand the other through the vehicle of poetry” - Diana Janney Poetry and philosophy bring together two fractured souls, 12 year old Rufus Ellerton whose parents have died, and his grandfather Horatio who’s now tasked with raising him. Diana Janney’s latest novel is a beautiful, musical piece of writing, which weaves poetry and philosophical musings into the prose. A Man of Understanding follow...
S9E1 Murder on Lake Garda: Tom Hindle on the nature of family, memory and lies
February 21, 2024 01:01 - 33 minutes - 46.2 MB“No one wakes up a horrible person. It's something that takes hold over time. It's about worldview, formative experiences, and what you were told growing up as a kid. And I try very hard to think about that stuff because… you can feel it.” - Tom Hindle In the idyllic setting of Italy’s largest lake, Lake Garda, the illustrious Heywood family gather for a wedding when horror strikes. Someone has been murdered… but who is the killer? And will they strike again? Tom Hindle is making quite the...
JFK Assassination, What Really Happened?: 60th Anniversary Special with Mark Taylor
November 22, 2023 01:05 - 50 minutes - 68.7 MB“Height of the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis had happened just a year before. The last thing you want is to show the world’s superpower to be so incompetent that they shot their own president. And you can understand why they would cover that up and try to hide it.” In memory of US President John F Kennedy, and to mark the 60th anniversary of his assassination, we peer beyond the conspiracy theories to find out what really happened on the fateful day. Did Lee Harvey Oswald really fire ...
S8E12 Wedding Drama: Kate Sawyer on ‘This Family’ - a story of the unseen
August 22, 2023 23:05 - 34 minutes - 48 MB“How many weddings have you gone to where you don't really know very many other people at the wedding? And it's trying to make those connections of who is who. It was something I wanted to recreate for the reader.” Between deciding the guest-list and actually getting everyone together under one roof, wedding days can be… chaotic, to say the least. Beneath the jubilance often lies a web of unresolved family dramas and conflict. The question is, will it bubble up to the surface? Kate Sawyer’...
S8E11 As Rich as the King: Abigail Assor’s bittersweet love-letter to Casablanca
August 15, 2023 23:05 - 24 minutes - 34.2 MB“Loving a country is also never ceasing to be demanding. Through that book I asked my city to do something else, to change the system. I have a bittersweet relationship with the city. I love it. And at the same time, I have a little bit of anger.” Casablanca, the largest city in Morocco, is a city of great inequality - a patriarchal system run by a monarchy. And in ‘As Rich as the King’, we see how that inequality impacts the life of sixteen-year-old French teenager Sarah. Abigail Assor’s ...
S8E10 My Men: Victoria Kielland on the most infamous serial killer you’ve never heard of
August 08, 2023 23:05 - 35 minutes - 48.4 MB“Her love is quite possessive, wanting to become the other person, owning the man, or becoming whole and finally complete. But the thing is, she's never going to complete herself because the wound is too deep.” Between 14 and 40. That’s how many men were killed by Belle Gunness. Yet despite the terrible atrocities of ‘America’s first female serial killer’, there’s a good chance you’ve never heard her name. In ‘My Men’, a new novel from Victoria Kielland, we learn the tortured and troubled ...
S8E9 Scorched Grace: Margot Douaihy on the hardboiled genre and a queer, heavily tattooed nun
August 01, 2023 23:02 - 34 minutes - 47.9 MB“I wanted to start with a very unstable, shaky foundation in order to create a world of voltage and heat and fire. Each book in the series is its own little storm.” The hardboiled genre has received a complete makeover. Holiday is a queer, chain-smoking, heavily tattooed nun, covered completely in her nun’s habit. And her amateur sleuthing skills are taking the literary world by storm. Scorched Grace is the first of a brand new series of books from Margot Douaihy. In the novel, Holiday att...
S8E8 Hokey Pokey: Kate Mascarenhas on a gothic horror in a grand hotel
July 26, 2023 00:02 - 34 minutes - 47.7 MB“What you want from that gothic house is the sense of being overwhelmed by scale, while also having a sense of unease and claustrophobia as well. Those two things, twinned together.” The Regent Hotel in Birmingham may be grand, but beneath its opulence, cocktail parties and fine dining, lies a gothic nightmare of murder, deception and mystery. Hokey Pokey, the new book from Kate Mascarenhas, follows Nora Dickinson, who finds herself locked in the Regent with a host of high society guests d...
S8E7 The Contest: Karen Hamilton on the jeopardy and dangers of a mountaintop thriller
July 18, 2023 23:07 - 27 minutes - 37.8 MB“One person told me he got to a point where he didn't actually care whether he lived or died. He felt so ill that he had hallucinations. So it's a risk. It's a risk.” For the people who’ve climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, making it to the summit is more than a battle of fitness or of money. It’s a challenging test of one’s mental fortitude unlike no other. Throw into the mix a little deception, trickery and deceit - and that climb can become deadly. In Karen Hamilton’s latest book ‘The Contest’,...
S8E6 Outside, the Sky is Blue: Christina Patterson on the tragedy and joy of her family memoir
July 11, 2023 23:05 - 31 minutes - 43.6 MB“I don't think anyone could have looked at the Patterson family and said, “oh, what a conventionally successful party”. But I did want to honour them. And I realised I was actually and am proud of them because they did it. They loved, they were good, they were decent, they were kind, they were courageous.” Though Christina Patterson’s family may not be “conventionally successful”, they are extraordinary. Despite much tragedy, Christina looks back on her family’s story with joy. In her new ...
S8E5 Kala: Colin Walsh on terrors of the past and a town of dark secrets
July 04, 2023 23:05 - 36 minutes - 50.4 MB“Kala is the Sinatra of the book. You have all these different perspectives on her. My hope was that having these panoramic perspectives would create spaces for the reader to create their own relationship to Kala.” A town with a series of dark secrets, upended by the reopening of a decades old-wound. When the horrors of the past have scarred and warped their victims over time, how does despair manifest when it all comes back to haunt them? Kala is the debut novel from Colin Walsh. The book...
S8E4 The Dive: Sara Ochs on the dark underbelly of an island paradise
June 27, 2023 23:05 - 27 minutes - 37.6 MB“It's so welcoming. The people are wonderful. It's beautiful. It was really where I thought I could see myself living and building a life. And then when I found out about that murder, it did raise the hairs on the back of my neck.” How does a place you love transform into a place of fear? Can the beauty of an island paradise ever outshine the darkness that lies beneath the surface? The Dive is the debut novel from Sara Ochs. The thriller takes place on the fictional island of Koh Sang in T...
S8E3 The Girls of Summer: Katie Bishop on the fallibility of memory
June 20, 2023 23:03 - 33 minutes - 46.1 MB“Having that realisation of looking back on a memory that they really prized and valued, and realising that it was something a little bit darker and that they were perhaps taken advantage of. It is something that's really troubling for people.” Is there a moment in your life that you look back on with nothing but fondness? A golden moment where life was perfect? How closely do you think that memory holds up to reality? We’re all guilty of looking back with rose-tinted glasses from time-to-...
S8E2 Go As A River: Shelley Read on the rocky path of adversity
June 13, 2023 23:05 - 36 minutes - 50.1 MB“Her story in my mind is sort of a two steps forward, one step back kind of journey. It's not that we face one major challenge in our life and suddenly we are these wise and capable people.” In life, there isn’t one straight road out of adversity and grief. And so, when charting your characters’ journeys through hardship, authenticity means lingering in the messiness. Shelley Read’s new book ‘Go As A River’ is a wonderful coming-of-age story, which opens in 1940s rural Colorado. It follows...
S8E1 One Moment: Becky Hunter on the strength we find in grief
June 06, 2023 23:05 - 34 minutes - 47.5 MB“It’s that question ‘What if?’ ‘What if I had done this differently?’ And it's something I'm really obsessed with in my own life.” The death of a main character is often a controversial and difficult moment in any work of literature - but what if it happens in the first few pages? Stirred by her own experiences of losing a close friend far too soon, Becky Hunter’s debut novel One Moment sees death not as the end, but as the beginning. After a tragic opening, Scarlett watches down on her be...
S7E12 Hotel 21: Senta Rich on kleptomania and control
April 18, 2023 23:05 - 31 minutes - 43.7 MB“The reason I thought the cleaner had taken my brush wasn’t because of value. It was to get back at me, you see.” What started as the innocuous tale of a missing hairbrush, potentially stolen by a hotel cleaner, quickly turned into an exciting novel about kleptomania and control. It may have been just a small and fairly innocuous moment in Senta Rich’s life, but she morphed it into something spectacular - her debut novel Hotel 21. In the book we follow hotel cleaner Noelle, a seemingly mo...
S7E11 Andy Africa: Stephen Buoro on coming of age in the shadow of colonialism
April 11, 2023 23:05 - 28 minutes - 39.4 MB“He’s carrying this post-colonial sense that many Black people, many Nigerians and Africans feel. Like, we feel we are subservient - we are not good enough as white people.” Andrew Aziza is a 15 year old boy growing up in Kontagora in Northern Nigeria, wrestling with issues of politics, identity and spirituality. Faced with a feeling that Africa is “cursed”, he finds himself longing to be with a blonde, white woman from the West. Stephen Buoro is the author of The Five Sorrowful Mysteries ...
S7E10 Collected Works: Lydia Sandgren on a decade of writing and the musicality of storytelling
April 05, 2023 07:43 - 37 minutes - 52 MB“I became more curious, I think. The longer I’ve written, the more curious I have become. I was somehow liberated when I started to work. I felt like I became more free.” Is it ever too late to finish writing that novel you started all those years ago? Creating a truly great novel takes time - sometimes longer than you think. Today’s author spent an entire decade writing her newly released debut novel, and it was certainly worth the wait. Lydia Sandgren is the author of Collected Works, a ...
S7E9 The Garnett Girls: Georgina Moore on family love, betrayal and secrets
March 28, 2023 23:05 - 34 minutes - 47.2 MB“The girls really want to bring someone home that doesn’t just try to fit in. They want someone who’s going to bring something new to the family lore, to family legend, to the Garnett way of life.” Every family has their own traditions, habits and customs that often seem alien to the outside world. And for large, close-knit families whose lives are entirely intertwined, this can make for a daunting experience for new partners. The Garnett Girls certainly have their own way - whether they b...
S7E8 Violence Against Women: Ayesha Mago on the Sexual Violence Research Initiative
March 22, 2023 00:07 - 28 minutes - 38.9 MB“There is such an unbelievable amount of violence. There is so much unnecessary hurt that women and children are suffering. There have got to be solutions, and we have to keep trying to find those.” No matter where you are in the world, violence against women is frighteningly prevalent, taking many forms and rooted in the power imbalance between the genders. Ayesha Mago is the global advocacy director of the the Sexual Violence Research Initiative, an organisation which works to advance re...
S7E7 The Witch in the Well: Camilla Bruce on obsession, female rivalry and the supernatural
March 15, 2023 00:05 - 28 minutes - 39 MB“If someone wants to write a story that you have researched and really gotten involved with emotionally - if you see someone do it in a different way that opposes your own views - how would that make you feel?” Have you ever had the feeling someone else might be writing the exact same story as you, at the exact same time? Have you ever felt desperate to finish your book in case someone pips you to the post? Well, in The Witch in the Well rivalry, jealousy and hatred run amuck as this very ...
S7E6 International Women’s Day special: Dean Peacock on feminist peace and decoupling masculinity from war and violence
March 08, 2023 00:04 - 38 minutes - 53.4 MB“Faced with a more precarious claim on power, the film industry is depicting men in more stereotypically powerful ways. The big question is ‘what do we do about it’?” The global feminist movement has the same budget as one F35 fighter plane. That alone shows you how much of a chasm there is between the funding for peace and the funding for war. In this International Women’s Day special, we speak to Dean Peacock, director of the Mobilising Men for Feminist Peace programme for the Women’s In...
S7E5 The Unseen Caribbean: Kevin Jared Hosein on the dark history of Trinidad
March 01, 2023 00:05 - 30 minutes - 41.9 MB“It is as foreign to some people here, as it would be to someone not living here. There’s a kind of feral nature to it that I wanted to capture." Many of us hold a picture postcard view of the Caribbean - steel drums, calypso music and coconut trees - but places like Trinidad have a shockingly dark past. Kevin Jared Hosein is the author of ‘Hungry Ghosts’, a book which explores the impact of colonialism on Trinidad, taking us back in time to a snapshot in the country’s history when Trinid...
S7E4 How To Be Kind: Benjy Kusi on acceptance, empathy and why you shouldn’t fear ignorance
February 22, 2023 00:05 - 43 minutes - 59.7 MB“We need to get our heads out of the sand, and be open and aware to learning new things, in order to gain new inclusive habits which will enable us to be more sensitive and kinder to others.” Our modern world is a more accepting one, but also a busier one. While we understand better than ever the importance of being kind - it can be difficult to find the time to actually practise kindness. Benjy Kusi is a diversity, inclusion and wellbeing consultant, and the author of self-help guide ‘Hop...
S7E3 Supernatural Belief: Katy Hays on tarot cards, ambition and toxic relationships
February 15, 2023 00:05 - 41 minutes - 56.4 MB“It’s so strange, this idea that parts of your life are already determined. And would you want to know? I wouldn’t want to know.” Do you believe in the supernatural? If not, what would make you believe? Or perhaps the question is, where? As a gothic museum home to people with outlandish theories, The Cloisters is the perfect breeding ground for supernatural belief. ‘The Cloisters: The Secret History for a New Generation’ is the new novel from Katy Hays. It follows the story of Ann Stilwell...
S7E2 A Crime Series: Simon Mason on creating a fresh new universe in a familiar setting
February 08, 2023 00:05 - 34 minutes - 47.6 MB“What I trust is if my stories are not so much plot driven but character driven, then the possibilities are endless”. Crime is a genre we all know and love. But what are the perfect ingredients for crafting a crime story that keeps you coming back for more - that stokes the desire to return for a whole series of novels? Well, if you want the recipe, look no further than Simon Mason. He’s the author of ‘A Killing in November’ and ‘The Broken Afternoon’, two novels in the DI Wilkins series -...
S7E1 Tensions in the Workplace: Gabriella Braun on the hidden truths behind our behaviour at work
February 01, 2023 00:05 - 38 minutes - 53.4 MB“Conflict isn’t just between people, it’s within us. We all have inherent contradictions within us. That is the way we’re built.” Feuds, power struggles, tensions and conflict - the workplace can so easily become a hotbed of hostility. Toxic work cultures are frighteningly common - but why? And what can we do about it? Gabriella Braun gets to the very root of this problem in her non-fiction novel All That We Are: uncovering the hidden truths behind our behaviour at work - an essential piec...
Trailer: Series 7
January 25, 2023 00:05 - 1 minute - 2.46 MBSeries 7 is about to launch, and it’s time to whet your appetite for our most international series to date. Find out what’s coming up, and hear a teaser of our conversation with Gabriella Braun, Director of Working Well, who’ll be kicking the series off by discussing her new book All That We Are: Uncovering the hidden truths behind our behaviour at work. Tune in from Wednesday 1st February for the return of Behind The Spine. Your host is inkjockey founder Mark Heywood. Behind The Spine i...
BONUS: Writing Salon Volume II preview
December 28, 2022 00:05 - 6 minutes - 9.06 MBAhead of Series 7 which goes live in February, we share some exciting news from our sister project, The Writing Salon. Your host is inkjockey founder Mark Heywood. Behind The Spine is an inkjockey production, and the audio accompaniment to The Writing Salon. Sign up to the newsletter here. You can buy copies of our anthology series here. You can view the full transcript here. Connect with the show: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behindthespinepodcast/ Facebook: https://www.face...
S6E12 Be More Grace: Fran Littlewood on midlife heroines and refuting the narrative
December 21, 2022 00:05 - 32 minutes - 45 MB“This is an expression of everything I feel, in the midlife women around me, this sort of simmering rage that we’re living with. You’re supposed to be the perfect mother, the perfect wife, the perfect daughter, the perfect friend. It’s a huge, huge pressure.” Held to an incredibly high standard by society and squeezed from all sides, women are fed an ideal that is impossible to live up to. And for women of a certain age, there’s the prevailing narrative that they’re “past it…invisible and u...
S6E11 Humour in the Face of Death: Catherine Newman on grief, laughter and polenta cake
December 14, 2022 00:05 - 34 minutes - 46.8 MB“Anyone who has spent time in a hospice or sat by the bedside of a dying person knows this…it can be a lot of time to fill. Often weeks on end of sitting around. It’s like hosting a really bad dinner party.” The dramatisation of death is common to see on page, stage and screen - usually all focused around the dying breaths and final moments. But those moments are fleeting, and for those waiting to die, it can be a long, mundane and even funny experience at times. Catherine Newman is the au...
S6E10 Messy Lives: Susannah Dickey on flawed characters and keeping it real
December 07, 2022 00:05 - 35 minutes - 49.4 MB“Grief doesn’t experience time in a linear model. You don’t just grow out of grief by dint of the days passing. That’s why Lily doesn’t have a typical arc - that eureka moment at the end”. Characters won’t always align with your views, or do the things you expect of them. The most authentic and compelling characters are those who lead messy lives and make infuriating decisions - because that’s real. Susannah Dickey is a Northern Irish writer and the author of Common Decency. In the novel w...
S6E9 A Nonfiction Novel: Juan Gabriel Vasquez on the story the facts don’t tell
November 30, 2022 00:05 - 32 minutes - 44.9 MB“Novels can open a space in which opposing ideas are valid at the same time. In which reality is considered in a complex way.” What defines a novel? Can the genre deal in both fiction and fact? It may seem contradictory, but the ability to play with facts in a novel may actually bring the truth behind them into focus more clearly. Juan Gabriel Vasquez is widely heralded as one of the world’s greatest living novelists. In his new book Retrospective, he charts the barely fictionalised and ex...
S6E8 The Metaverse: Zillah Watson on the present and future of virtual reality
November 23, 2022 00:05 - 34 minutes - 47.5 MB“I don’t think people have got enough of a taste of what [VR] can offer to really see where it’s going.” It’s been billed as the future of technology, poised to transform entertainment, but virtual reality still hasn’t hit the mainstream. The technology is being used in increasingly interesting and sophisticated ways, but just how far is it from becoming a staple in everybody’s home? Zillah Watson is a London-based consultant on VR and immersive content. In this episode she explores the k...
S6E7 Romantic Comedies: Emma Hughes on stigmas, dating apps and comedy baubles
November 16, 2022 00:05 - 34 minutes - 47.2 MB“There is strange conspiracy of silence around romantic comedies” Despite the genre’s huge share of the market, there’s a notion that romantic comedy is without substance and not worthy of critical acclaim. Today’s guest is here to explain why that couldn’t be further from the truth. Emma Hughes is the author of No Such Thing As Perfect, a romantic comedy about Laura Morrison, and her experience trialling a new, ground-breaking dating service called Cupid, that promises to find her perfect...
S6E6 A Reimagined Britain: Jane Thynne on a dystopian, Nazi history
November 09, 2022 00:05 - 28 minutes - 39.5 MB“The great pleasure of it was to keep the original London, and lay over it a sheen of how it would have changed. It becomes frighteningly easy to imagine this happening.” What would Britain look like if there was never a Second World War? What if, instead, Britain allowed the Nazi regime to take hold of the country, forming a peaceful Alliance with Germany? This dystopian version of history is the setting for Jane Thynne’s new novel Queen High, a sequel to Widowland. In this episode we exp...
S6E5 Rare Books: Oliver Darkshire on the allure of ancient tomes
November 02, 2022 00:05 - 30 minutes - 42.3 MB“These collectors feel like they have accrued, or put together this cast of characters in one place. These friends who they have grown to know.” To be human is to love rarity - a rare object grants its owner a sense of power, joy and worthiness, that is simply unexplainable. While few of us are ever lucky enough to possess the kinds of rarities you might find in a museum - collectors are a different breed. Oliver Darkshire is the author of Once Upon A Tome: The misadventures of a rare boo...
S6E4 Horror: Isaura Barbé-Brown on final girls, jump scares and the gender fear gap
October 25, 2022 23:04 - 40 minutes - 55.9 MB“It’s mostly women I know, who love horror films in that way, because nothing’s really scarier than the real world things that can happen to us.” For all the horror movie characters who end up as corpses - victims to the slaughter - there are those who escape their demise. One particular type of survivor - the ‘final girl’ - is the subject of much fascination for today’s guest. Isaura Barbé-Brown is a horror expert, and writes for the British Film Institute, Den of Geek, and the Bloody Wom...
S6E3 Medieval Britain: Amy Jeffs on nature, the supernatural, and demons
October 18, 2022 23:05 - 39 minutes - 53.6 MB“These poems and artefacts; they inspire more questions than they answer with their narrative incompleteness. They are those areas of black ink - that silence - and I think it’s so enticing.” For the people who lived during the medieval times, the supernatural and natural were not separate. They were intertwined. At a time when nature dominated the landscape, superstition and the belief in fantastical stories were a part of life - a way to make sense of the mysteries of the world. Amy Jeff...
S6E2 Empowerment Through Music: Malaki Patterson on transforming young lives
October 11, 2022 23:05 - 30 minutes - 41.8 MB“When you have nothing, you’re at your most creative” How were your school music lessons - did they inspire you, or leave you wanting? For many the music curriculum fails to speak to them, for others it’s unaffordable to even take part. As vital as music education is, there’s a great deal of inequality and inaccessibility that needs to be addressed. Malaki Patterson is the Artistic Director of The Music Works, a Gloucester-based charity that aims to transform young lives through music, wor...