Saturday, January 07, 2023

Media Dragon prediction MMXXIII - Memories linger and eventually overflow the carefully manicured banks of the rivers of our lives

    Today is Epiphany, for those Christians who aren’t celebrating Christmas today, and thus the last of the Twelve Days of Christmas. Time to take your decorations down if you haven’t already -  January 7


 There are memories in our lives, and in peoples and nations, that are carried for years. Painful pasts, sins against us, and sins we have committed don’t just disappear. Memories linger and eventually overflow the carefully manicured banks of the rivers of our lives and flood those around us with the unreconciled muck of the past. 


Media Dragons - First three words predict 2023


‘Happy to let it hang out’: budgie smugglers are back on Australian beaches


   New World Literature Today 


       The January-February 2023 issue of World Literature Today is now available, with a focus on 2022 Neustadt International Prize for Literature laureate -- and The Knight and His Shadow-author -- Boubacar Boris Diop. 
       As always, of particular interest: the book review section


Stolen, burnt, unfinished: The greatest books we’ll never get to read

They are left in trains and taxis and pubs, they are stolen, they are burnt by mistake, or on purpose when thought to be too bad, too incomplete or too scandalous for posterity. History is rife with stories of great writers’ novels, histories, plays, poems, speeches and diaries that got away forever.

Don’t imagine that new technology makes them harder to lose. Recently, crime novelist Ann Cleeves lost her laptop, containing a draft of her next novel, in a snowstorm. When it was found, a car had run over it. When Terry Pratchett died in 2017, a steamroller fulfilled his last wishes by crushing the hard drive containing all his unfinished work.




       Antonín Bajaja (1942-2022) 

       Czech author Antonín Bajaja has passed away; see, for example, the Idnes.cz report
       His prize-winning Burying the Season has been published in English by Jantar; see their publicity page
       See also the Dana Blatná Literary Agency author page and the CzechLit information page


Kottke: “As 2022 recedes into the rearview mirror, I took some time to go back over my media diet posts to pick out some books, movies, TV shows, and experiences from the past year that were especially wonderful. Enjoy.”

  • At the top of my wonderful things for 2022 – beSpacific, LLRX and you – my readers, and every author who did me the honor of allowing me to publish their work. Thank you. Please join me in 2023, which marks 27 years of publication for LLRX and 21 years for beSpacific.