A Podcast of the Artist

Explore the dark brilliance of William S. Burroughs, the Beat Generation icon who shaped counterculture, inspired Kurt Cobain, and detonated American literature with Naked Lunch and the revolutionary cut‑up technique. This episode dives into Burroughs’ dangerous life — heroin, outlaw art, post‑war America, surveillance paranoia, and the eerie meeting that led to The Priest They Called Him. If you’re into Beat writers, Burroughs biography, Cobain collaborations, or the roots of modern anti‑establishment culture, this is the episode that drags you straight into the shadows.

The Brontë sisters — the grief‑stricken Yorkshire prodigies who detonated Victorian literature and reshaped storytelling forever. This episode uncovers how Charlotte, Emily, and Anne transformed trauma, isolation, and raw imagination into some of the most explosive, genre‑defining novels ever written. It’s a story of death, obsession, scandal, shattered decorum, and three women who rewrote the rules of fiction before the world was ready for them.

Roald Dahl’s real life was darker, stranger, and more explosive than any tale he ever wrote. In this episode, we uncover the war hero turned spy, the children’s author with a razor‑sharp edge, the medical inventor, and the wildly complicated husband behind Matilda, The BFG, The Twits, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. From espionage to scandal to genius-level storytelling, this is the untamed, brutal, brilliant truth behind one of the most controversial and iconic British authors of all time — a man whose chaotic life shaped the stories that shaped our childhoods.

The line between madness and genius is a thin one, and Ernest Hemingway would often stuble over this line with a drink in one hand and a bag of emotional damage in the other. However, fighter that he was, Ernest would battle againt the nature of his upbringing to be the leading light of his generation, and usher in a completely unique style that influences many writers even today. 

From humble-ish middle class beginnings, Virginia Woolf left a legacy so bright she commands our respect As one of the greatest writers of the the 20th Century. Yet it's the mental demons that not only took her from us far too soon, but also helped to shape her and make her talent shine all the more brighter.

As the greatest poet of his age Lord Byron held the world in thrall with his art, but it was his personal life that truly made him the legend he is today... for better or worse (definitely worse!). Like an oldern day Russell Brand only with more talent, hear all about the man who wrote some of the greatest poetry ever whilst being exiled from his home country for too much shagging.

Niccolo Machiavelli was a Florentine diplomat and author who wrote the worlds most famous and contentious political treatise, The Prince. What many might not know about his legacy is that this most provocative of all novels was written under the duress of torture. Great art comes from great suffering, join us to find out more.