Behind The Spine

“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 expert in compliance and risk management, and the author of Humanizing Rules: Bringing Behavioural Science to Ethics and Compliance. From the funny to the deadly, he’s been analysing many of these peculiar rules through his Compliance in the Wild series on social media, spurring his fans to send in examples of their own.

This episode explores the impact these compliance faux pas have on consumers and the general public, and why we should make it our duty to call businesses out on this stuff. We hear how Christian’s method of crowdsourcing content allows him to take bigger creative risks and evolve his message. And we explore some of the challenges writers face and how Christian is dealing with them.

In this episode, you will learn:

• How to evolve and adapt your message after your book has been written.

Find out more about Christian Hunt here.

Hear Mark interviewing Christian about his book on his own podcast, Human Risk.

Your host is inkjockey founder Mark Heywood.

Behind The Spine is an inkjockey production and the audio accompaniment to The Writing Salon. Sign up for 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.facebook.com/BehindTheSpine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BehindTheSpine

Website: www.behindthespine.co.uk

“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 protagonist, Ellen Lark, we get a glimpse into what it must be like to be deaf, beautifully put in her shoes as she constantly struggles to both understand and be understood.

This novel also teaches us about deaf history. Hear the lesser known story of telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell, and the role he played in the deaf community, from teaching a method called Visible Speech, to his oppressive views about sign language.

In this episode, you will learn:

• About the huge variety in the deaf experience

Find out more about Sarah Marsh here.

Your host is inkjockey founder Mark Heywood.

Behind The Spine is an inkjockey production and the audio accompaniment to The Writing Salon. Sign up for 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.facebook.com/BehindTheSpine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BehindTheSpine

Website: www.behindthespine.co.uk

“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 Leona Deakin, writing under the pseudonym L.D. Smithson. The novel follows a cast of 8 characters through the eyes of Bonnie, our protagonist, as they compete for cash in a reality TV show of puzzles and games. But when the first contestant winds up dead, they soon realise the only way out alive… is to win.

Hear how L.D. Smithson drew inspiration from our fascination and love of reality shows like The Traitors and Big Brother. Discover how she leans into her background as a psychologist to give us an insight into the human psyche under pressure. And learn how she used a mixed-media narrative to bring this story to life in many unique ways.

In this episode, you will learn:

• How to use podcasts as a narrative vehicle within a novel.

Find out more about L.D. Smithson here.

Your host is inkjockey founder Mark Heywood.

Behind The Spine is an inkjockey production and the audio accompaniment to The Writing Salon. Sign up for 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.facebook.com/BehindTheSpine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BehindTheSpine

Website: www.behindthespine.co.uk

“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 delle Colombe. Moving from an Italy in the midst of World War II and in the throes of civil war, to a more peaceful point in Italy’s history, but one that is turbulent for the villa’s characters Beatrice and Tess.

Hear how each timeline was inspired by two incredible, real-life stories of determination and bravery. Delve into issues of grief and suffering, in a novel that illuminates how we all experience these emotions differently. And learn how to do dual-timeline narratives the right way.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why you must find an anchor for your story when writing dual-timeline fiction.

Find out more about Fiona here.

Your host is inkjockey founder Mark Heywood.

Behind The Spine is an inkjockey production and the audio accompaniment to The Writing Salon. Sign up for 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.facebook.com/BehindTheSpine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BehindTheSpine

Website: www.behindthespine.co.uk

“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 introduces us to the heavily tattooed Jones, who regales us with the stories behind the ink that adorns her body. Flitting between past and future, the book takes us on a journey through time, tackling hard subjects like violence against women and generational trauma.

Hear how Joelle navigated the move from poetry to prose, why she chose to tell such important stories through the art form of tattoos and hear the inspirational story of the impact her work has had on marginalised female communities.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why you should write stories about the issues you feel enraged by. 

Find out more about Joelle here.

Your host is inkjockey founder Mark Heywood.

Behind The Spine is an inkjockey production and the audio accompaniment to The Writing Salon. Sign up for 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.facebook.com/BehindTheSpine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BehindTheSpine

Website: www.behindthespine.co.uk

“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 follows the story of Rufus (Blue) as he moves to a finca in Majorca with his grandfather.

Hear as Diana explores her motivations for writing a novel like this, in this way. How her musical background inspires her writing style - even if she doesn’t realise it. And what kind of writer Diana is, gardener or architect.

In this episode you will learn:

• How to weave poetry and philosophy into a novel

Find out more about Diana here.

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.facebook.com/BehindTheSpine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BehindTheSpine

Website: www.behindthespine.co.uk

“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 name for himself in the whodunit genre, with the releases of  A Fatal Crossing, The Murder Game and now Murder on Lake Garda. Meshing the pacey excitement of a detective novel with the gritty realism of well fleshed out characters, his books have a hint of thriller, and his latest is no different. 

Tune in as Tom tells us about the rotten Heywood family and their unsavoury past, how he came to set a murder mystery in such a place of serene beauty, and why the beat “People lie, facts don’t” runs so consistently throughout his novel.

In this episode you will learn:

• Why you should think of your scenes as elastic bands if tension is your goal

Find out more about Tom here.

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.facebook.com/BehindTheSpine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BehindTheSpine

Website: www.behindthespine.co.uk

“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 all three shots, as the official reports suggest?

Mark Taylor is an imagery analyst, holds a degree in psychology and has been an avid target shooter since the age of 11. With this unique skill set, he’s analysed the evidence in a level-headed and expert way. Examining footage like the Zapruder and Bronson films, images of the bullets, photos of the motorcade and the grassy knoll, Mark concludes the fatal third bullet came from another gun. In this episode we dig deep to find out who pulled the trigger on that final shot, and how Mark reached his conclusion.

You can also watch the full episode on YouTube here.

A word of caution, we’re discussing a murder, and will be showing video footage captured on the day of the assassination. As such, the content of this production may be emotionally challenging. If this is not for you, skip this episode, and join us next year for series 9. Otherwise, please take care while watching or listening.

See Mark’s full analysis here, in a presentation titled The JFK Assassination - The Real Nightmare On Elm Street.

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.facebook.com/BehindTheSpine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BehindTheSpine

Website: www.behindthespine.co.uk

“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’s new novel ‘This Family’ is set over a single summer’s day, at the wedding of Mary, whose fractured family has been brought together. The book regularly takes us back in time, revealing information about the cast of characters that have gathered for the big day.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why you shouldn’t place too many restrictions on yourself before you head into writing a novel.

Find out more about Kate here.

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.facebook.com/BehindTheSpine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BehindTheSpine

Website: www.behindthespine.co.uk

“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 brilliantly poignant novel is inspired by her own experience growing up in Casablanca in the 90s. Sarah, while poor, attends Casablanca’s elite high school for expats and wealthy locals. It’s there that she tries to form a relationship with Driss, rumoured to be the richest guy in the city - but to do that she has to cross the gaping social divide that separates them.

In this episode, you will learn:

• When to avoid making heroes of your characters.

Find out more about Abigail here.

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.facebook.com/BehindTheSpine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BehindTheSpine

Website: www.behindthespine.co.uk