An Escapologist’s Diary: Part 76. 2023 Review.

Baboosh! Time for an annual report to my imaginary shareholders.

But first an excerpt from last year’s report:

I had the privilege of working hard and attentively this year […] though I have nothing tactile to show for it yet. Soon, my pretties, soon. Next year’s review will be massive.

Indeed. I don’t mean to brag (though to brag is better than to humblebrag) but 2023 was probably my best ever year. I was happier and more focussed than any year since 2016 and possibly any year before that one. It was full and fun.

For starters, New Escapologist came back. You knew that, right? We began the year with a roaringly successful Kickstarter to bring the magazine back from the dead, and then delivered Issue 14 mid-year and Issue 15 in December. I don’t know about you guys (please tell me) but I think the return has been a smash. The mag is significantly better than ever. By all means tell me if you beg to differ and/or have any suggestions for how we proceed from here.

My first novel came out in May. Rub-A-Dub-Dub. It’s more Escapological in its themes than I intended. It hasn’t sold gangbusters unfortunately but I have written my first novel. Big step creatively. The few who read the book seem to like it and it won a Saltire Award in December for best cover design too. I like to laugh about this–about how nobody was interested in the contents of the book and how “best dressed” is a bit of a consolation prize–but I was involved in the design process and it’s something I’m proud of so it feels good to be seen.

Melt It, my 2022 book (which, strictly speaking, only reached anyone in January 2023 making this an impossibly bumper year if we see it that way) is now being made into a film. Some of this year was spent planning and actually filming. As well as being co-producer on this thing, I should be in the film quite a bit. Our recently-signed executive producer is none other than Michael Cumming (director of Brass Eye), which bodes well.

There were interviews for magCulutre, PopMatters, Outside Left, Monocle Radio, and for GingerBeardMark on YouTube.

I worked on other things which are not yet finished, perhaps most notably my ongoing secret American project with Landis Blair and John Robinson’s book about Momus, which I have edited and will be publishing in Feb’ ’24. Collaboration was a big deal this year in fact: Robinson, Blair, Anthony Irvine, Mark Cartwright, Thomas MacGregor, Samara, Reggie, still others.

Travel-wise, 2023 also delivered incredibly well. We went to Brussels, Gent, Bruges and Antwerp in January. In March we saw Basel, Freiburg and Weimar. May saw a trip to our volcano lair in Montreal (my first time in about five years). I did a mini-tour of the south coast of England in July, taking in a considerable number of sights and meeting many important people London, Sussex and the West Country. On this trip, I met New Escapologist‘s Henry at his tiny house, a report of which you might enjoy in Issue 15. In October I visited Paris with friend Landis. And November saw me in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam, Delft and Luxembourg. I don’t think I’ll be able to beat this travel record in 2024 (though there are some plans in place already). It certainly scratched an itch.

Elsewhere, there were gigs and festivals and gallery visits and walks. An old friendship rekindled, others fortified. Much ale quaffed. I grew my hair long again and my partner was granted her citizenship certificate finally and (one hopes) irrevocably. A beautiful, beautiful year. It’s amazing what we can achieve when there’s no personal battle to be fought.

2024 will not be as fruitful as 2023 was. It can’t be. But I do hope to fill the coming year with the same sort of activity: creative acts, travel, reading, art appreciation, quality time with friends. It’s unbeatable.

Thar blows the book list:

James Baldwin – Another Country
Mya-Rose Craig – Birdgirl
Viktor Frankl – Man’s Search for Meaning
Nell Zink – Mislaid
Haruki Murakami – Novelist as a Vocation
Ottessa Moshfegh – My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Sachiko Burton et al – Writing Fat Positivity
Soetsu Yanagi – The Beauty of Everyday Things
Vivek Chibber – Confronting Capitalism
Halle Butler – The New Me
John Williams – Stoner
Fiona Helmsley – Girls Gone Old
Kate Beaton – Ducks
Alexandre Dumas – The Count of Monte Cristo
Sarah Anderson – Fangs
Dora Carrington – Carrington’s Letters
Lucy Knisley – French Milk
Sebastian Horsley – Dandy in the Underworld†
Merlin Sheldrake – Entangled Life
Fiona MacCarthy – Eric Gill
Andrea Wulf – Magnificent Rebels
Virginia Woolf – To the Lighthouse
Louisa May Alcott – Little Women
Claire Dederer – Monsters
Rodge Glass – Alasdair Gray: A Secretary’s Biography
Clinton Kelly – I Hate Everyone, Except You
John Robinson – Famous for Fifteen People
Sloane Crosley – I Was Told There’d Be Cake
Benji Nate – Hell Phone
JD Salinger – Nine Stories
Sarah Bakewell – Humanly Possible
Ariel Anderssen – Playing to Lose
EM Forster – Maurice
Jaron Lanier – Ten Arguments†
Sayaka Murata – Earthlings
Milton Steinberg – Basic Judaism
Martin Gaylord – The Yellow House
Naomi Klein – Doppelgänger
Warren Ellis – Nina Simone’s Gum
Heather Radke – Butts
John Robinson – Folktronics (ms)
Joe Melen – Bore Hole
Mona Awad – Bunny
Emily Carroll – A Guest in the House
Torah – Bereshit
Philip Roth – Zuckerman Unbound

Books read in substantial part but ultimately abandoned:

Brian Phillips – Impossible Owls (decent essay collection)
Katy Kessel – The Story of Art Without Men (very poor Level One Identity Art with nice pictures)
Mieko Kawakami – Breasts and Eggs (deeply dull novel with messy publication history)
Roger Clarke – A Natural History of Ghosts (yawn-inducing woo with misleading title)

If you’ve enjoyed some of the largely unremunerated blogging and publishing I’ve done this year, please consider sending some caffeine or backing our film to help next year’s projects along. Thank you.

But on we go, hand in hand, into the year of the orangutan. May it be a beautiful twelvemonth for all of us.

I end the year feeling replete.