In this extended episode of Spirit Talk Show, Doyle sits down with award-winning author Gerald Everett Jones for a wide-ranging conversation about writing, publishing, Hollywood, history, and what success really means for a working storyteller.
Gerald reflects on his journey from nonfiction and technical writing to fiction, screenwriting, and historical novels, sharing hard-won insight into the realities of traditional publishing, self-publishing, book promotion, and the often painful gap between creating a story and watching the industry reshape it.
The conversation also explores Gerald’s upcoming novel Jonathan’s Journal, a work of historical fiction inspired by a real World War I diary and expanded into a deeper story of memory, geopolitics, loss, and human connection. Along the way, Doyle and Gerald dive into film adaptations, streaming culture, the power of long-form storytelling, and why legacy may matter more than fame.
This is an episode about craft, survival, reinvention, and the long game of creative work.
Learn more about Gerald Everett Jones and his books:https://geraldeverettjones.com/
Spirit Talk Show – Bedtime Stories for Grown-UpsHosted by Doyle Follow Spirit Talk Show on social media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spirittalkshowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/doylespirittalkshow/X: https://x.com/doylespirittalk Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/spirittalkshow www.spirittalkshow.info  If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, rate, and share it with someone who might need it.Sponsored by Incogni — they remove your personal data from broker sites automatically so strangers cannot buy your information. Get protected: https://deal.incogni.io/spirittalkshow 

He was in the pub with Rowan Atkinson when John Cleese called. He watched Rick Mayal and Adrian Edmondson do their very first television appearance. He stood at the back of an empty auditorium the night Stefan Grappelli made a seasoned guitarist stop mid-conversation just to watch. He was there for so much of it — the golden age of British comedy, the writers' rooms, the charity stages, the moments that became television history.
And then, decades later, he sat down alone one night to play a role-playing game with twenty-four strangers across the world. And thought: what would it really be like to actually be this guy?
That question became a novel. Then a series. Then four books.
Richard Sparks has had two full creative lives, and he is not finished with either of them. In this conversation, he talks about what it meant to write for some of the most iconic voices in British comedy, what the room was really like when Rowan Atkinson switched on, the night he watched Robin Williams hold thirty people in physical pain from laughing, and why the most important thing he ever did for his career was quit the safe job he hated two weeks after signing on for another year.
He also reads live from his New Rock series — a chapter so quietly constructed that it gives you the answer to everything in chapter nine, and you don't realize what you've been handed until much later.
His advice to every young writer listening: learn the melody before you give anyone the riff. And never try to write like somebody else. It took him decades to prove that with his own work. He's still proving it.
Find Richard at richardsparks.com and the New Rock series wherever books are sold.
Spirit Talk Show – Bedtime Stories for Grown-UpsHosted by Doyle Follow Spirit Talk Show on social media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spirittalkshowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/doylespirittalkshow/X: https://x.com/doylespirittalk Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/spirittalkshow www.spirittalkshow.info  If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, rate, and share it with someone who might need it.Sponsored by Incogni — they remove your personal data from broker sites automatically so strangers cannot buy your information. Get protected: https://deal.incogni.io/spirittalkshow