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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“This drug feels incredibly likely. There are all sorts of mad men doing trials on themselves. And they have not put any thought into the societal implications of it” ~Hanna Thomas Uose AI is enabling rapid advancements in technology and drug discovery - unlike anything we’ve seen before. And with humankind’s obsession with longevity only deepening, some believe it’s only a matter of time before…
“He went down for a drink, did not come back. Nobody was found, but no one even started looking for him” ~Stephen May The story of the UK Labour politician Victor Grayson is a mysterious and thrilling one. Full of holes and unknowns that have never been solved. He went missing in the 1920s following a major political scandal - so what happened? In ‘Green Ink’, the author Stephen May imagines what…
“ I’ve received death threats from people just for posting about women’s football, which is wild” ~Beatrice Rogers Public support for women’s football has skyrocketed in recent years - and yet many of the female athletes still struggle to gain the recognition of their male counterparts. So just how much of the success of the pro game has trickled down to the lower tiers and grassroots leagues?…
“ Fiction writing is trying to unearth the mystery of who we are. And it boils down to a question of who and what you care about most” ~Alice Austen An apartment block in Belgium, full of close neighbours, suddenly torn apart by the news of war. This is the story of 33 Place Brugmann - whose residents’ lives are upended by fear, uncertainty and occupation. Today we’re revisiting the Second World…
“One day I heard the news that the head of the Deportees Association had died. I knew I needed to tell the story before the stories disappeared for good.” ~Ollie Guillou In 1942, on Hitler’s orders, more than a thousand islanders from Guernsey were deported to Germany, and sent to the internment camp known as Biberach. Theirs is a little-known story of fortitude and resilience - and the subject of…
“The German guy tells this joke in the factory. It's reported by the foreman. This guy's then hauled away and executed. That's kind of the kind of regime you are living under with the Nazis.” ~Simon Scarrow What was it like to live in Berlin in 1940? We very often picture the war years from the perspective of the Allies, but for the Germans living under the oppressive rule of the Nazis, life very…
“ I put that memoir out and my mum in particular was really upset and she came to me and was like, that's not how I remember that happening.” ~Kate Fagan Writing a memoir is a tricky business - you may think writing about your own life is a straightforward process of telling fact after fact. The trouble is, very rarely do the people in your life recall events the same way you do. There are…
“ If you write about real situations, real names and real people, there's always somebody else's blood on the floor at the end of it. Well this is me and my family's blood on the floor in this book.” ~Eoin McNamee Taking place in the shadow of The Troubles, The Bureau is a story of corruption, death, love and violence. Based on the real events of a murder-suicide between two lovers - the book also…
“All my publishers, my agents, my film agents, they have all rejected me multiple times in the past - and now I work with them!” ~Alex Aster Summer in the City is the new romance novel from internationally acclaimed author Alex Aster - known for her Lightlark series and massive social media following. Alex began writing at the age of 12, when she penned a 400-page novel and tenaciously approached…
“ That's why I write books. I want to see those characters tear their way out of the page and just come to life.” ~Tess Gerritsen The town of ‘Purity’ may be fiction, but its secrets are very much based on real life. It may be hard to believe, but in the American state of Maine, there’s a town where former spies go to retire. It’s this strange reality that sets the stage for Tess Gerritsen’s…
