“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 author of We All Want Impossible Things, a novel which draws on her own personal experience of waiting by the bedside of her best friend as she approached the end. In the book we get to see the humour and heartache of a 40 year long friendship coming to an end, as Ash cares for her best friend Edi who’s been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. 

In this episode, you will learn:

1. How to draw from real experiences in works of fiction.
2. Why flawed characters can still be loveable, even if they’re not likeable.
3. Why death doesn’t have to be dramatised to be deeply moving.

Find out more about Catherine 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