Behind The Spine

“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 explore this new world, and the unexpected but not implausible alterations to the timeline that might have brought it into being. We discuss the consequences of a regime hellbent on rewriting and editing history. And we talk about the underestimated power of wisdom.

In this episode, you will learn:

1. How to craft a dystopia that remains unsettlingly close to reality.

Find out more about Jane 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 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

“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 bookseller, which chronicles his many years spent working at Sotheran’s in London, one of the world's oldest antiquarian bookshops. In this episode he explores the two types of rare book collector - the Smaugs and the Draculas - and what compels them to buy these ancient tomes. He explains how the shop became an unlikely social media sensation, which led to him becoming an unexpected writer. And he shares an incredible moment from the book, reading a passage which sums up the store and the people who work in it.

In this episode, you will learn:

1. Why it’s important to give life to and write backstories for the objects of your stories.

Find out more about Oliver 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 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

“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 Women journal from Final Girls. In this Halloween special of the podcast, she explores the horror genre through a female lens - celebrating the heroic (and sometimes ghoulish) female protagonists who make it out alive. Isaura set Mark the challenge of watching the following films, which are all up for review in this episode:

• A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night - by Ana Lily Amirpour

In this episode, you will learn:

1. How horror can be just as, if not more impactful when you flip the narrative, and stop relying on the same old notions of female fear and vulnerability. 

Find out more about Isaura here.

Check out the Final Girls podcast 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 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

“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 Jeffs is an art historian specialising in the Middle Ages, and the author of ‘Wild: Tales from Early Medieval Britain’. In the book, through fiction and reflection, she retells stories from medieval poetry and legend, and explores the haunting past of the British landscape. 

Especially exciting are Amy’s readings from the book - look out for those!

In this episode, you will learn:

1. Why walking the ground of the places you wish to write about will make your work more vivid, and able to speak to all of the senses.

Find out more about Amy 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 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

“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, working with young people from all backgrounds, many of whom come from challenging circumstances. Inspired by the barriers he faced when he was growing up, Malaki is on a mission to make music more inclusive.

In this episode, you will learn the following:

1. Where there’s a will there’s a way. Creativity isn’t reliant on having vast amounts of money or the most high-tech equipment. 

Find out more about Malaki and The Music Works 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 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

“It feels so risky for the public purse to invest in individuals rather than in things. Backing people feels like a really progressive thing to do.”

In this era of new tech, where should the money flow? Our guest today argues we need to spend less on technology and invest more in people.

Tom Higham is the Creative Director of international media arts agency Mediale. In this episode he discusses the failings and opportunities within the arts industry, he addresses his concerns with the UK’s levelling up agenda, and he highlights an incredible artwork he’s helped bring to life called ‘People We Love’ by the artist Kit Monkman.

In this episode, you will learn the following:

1. Why taking yourself out of your art can boost audience engagement

Find out more about Tom and Mediale 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 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

Series 6 is right around the corner, and what a series it is! We’ll be diving into the world of the metaverse, looking at the mythology of the British landscape, and we’ll be joined by one of the world’s greatest living novelists. And for our first episode we’ll be in the company of Tom Higham, creative director of international media arts agency Mediale. Tune in from Wednesday 5th October - and stay with us right up until Christmas.

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.

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’s a huge feeling that a relationship will fix you…and it doesn’t always matter if it’s the right relationship, as long as you’re kinda in one.”

Being single, especially old and single, is not looked upon favourably in society. It’s no wonder then that people rush to make marriage pacts with their childhood best friends - a bizarre yet completely understandable byproduct of societal standards. But do those pacts ever work out?

In her latest book ‘Last Time We Met’, Emily Houghton brings us the story of Eleanor and Fin, who promise themselves to each other during their younger years, before they inevitably drift apart. But when fate brings them back together, everything has changed.

In this episode, you will learn the following:

1. How to write characters who exist in multiple timelines.

Other episodes you'll enjoy:

A Toxic Family: Rebecca Wait 

Life in Berlin: Bea Setton

Lessons In Chemistry: Bonnie Garmus

Find out more about Emily 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 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

"Old women are so much more than this. So much more. They are still complete human beings."

Purple hats, knitting needles and gnarled hands - this is how older women are usually portrayed and thought of. The pervading narrative is that they are no longer interesting. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. 

In her debut book Cat Brushing, Jane Campbell disrupts the stereotypes about older women. Through a collection of short stories she explores the lives of thirteen unforgettable characters, in a range of fierce, sensual and vivid narratives.

In this episode, you will learn the following:

1. Older people are still complete human beings, with rich lives full of experiences.

Other episodes you'll enjoy:

Lessons In Chemistry: Bonnie Garmus

The Flames: Sophie Haydock

Chronic Illness: Natasha Lipman

Find out more about Jane 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 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

Despite the common belief that parents just want to do right by their kids, we don’t always see it pan out like that. There are some terrible parents out there, and the dynamic of a toxic family is not an uncommon sight in literature. So what’s going on? What drives these difficult relationships?

In Rebecca Wait’s new novel ‘I’m Sorry You Feel That Way’, she tackles these questions, following the lives of Celia - a pretty awful mother - her son Michael, and twin girls Alice and Hanna.

In this episode we learn how offering a backstory to the ‘villain’ of your story helps to create a more believable and well-rounded character, we reassess the notion that your character must ‘overcome’ their flaws as part of their journey of growth, and we delve into the subject of intergenerational trauma.

Find out more about Rebecca 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 view the full transcript here.