# The Other Side of the Fire

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/a-reading-life-a-writing-life-with-sally-bayley-5890400/the-other-side-of-the-fire
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/a-reading-life-a-writing-life-with-sally-bayley-5890400/the-other-side-of-the-fire.md
Podcast: [A Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally Bayley](https://stenobird.com/podcast/a-reading-life-a-writing-life-with-sally-bayley-5890400)
Published: 2025-07-18T15:30:38+00:00
Episode link: https://readinglifewritinglife.podbean.com/e/the-other-side-of-the-fire/
Audio file: https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/p9sqaczc95rhdbsx/JB_Draft_266hge.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/a-reading-life-a-writing-life-with-sally-bayley-5890400/episodes/the-other-side-of-the-fire
Duration seconds: 1416

## Resource

For Gabriella Kelly Davies. ‘On the last day of summer Mrs Bohannon fell in love. The poplars, fallaciously pathetic, looked horrified, their branches rising on the wind like startled hair, and a pilgrim cloud wept a few chill tears.’ This week, Sally is once again in the world of Alice Thomas Ellis. Listen for a close reading of the opening of Ellis’ fourth novel, The Other Side of the Fire (1983), focusing on the construction of space, character, and intimacy between writer, narrator, and reader. The wonderful piano music in the opening section is ‘Thursday’, by Paul Seba. More on Paul and his work can be found here. This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen. Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/a-reading-life-a-writing-life-with-sally-bayley-5890400/episodes/the-other-side-of-the-fire/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/a-reading-life-a-writing-life-with-sally-bayley-5890400/the-other-side-of-the-fire.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.