Bye Bye I Love You is a book, yes, but the package of ideas that link first and last words is a cluster of media pieces appearing in disparate places and times. I hesitate to call it a solar system, because I don't mean for the book to assume a superior role (as the object with the most mass, it would have to play the role of the sun, with everything else orbiting around it). Maybe a galaxy?
Here are links to the items that belong to this cluster.
AUDIO PIECE
Subtitle podcast, (with Patrick Cox): How Leos Janacek set his daughter's last words to music
NEW ESSAYS
"Famous first words," in Big Think.
"God's goodbye" (on ritual last words)
"Come-gimme!" (on why the first words of primates are discounted)
TALKS
Multimodality at the end of life. Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, 23 April 2026.
Keynote at Belgian Association of Anglicists in Higher Education conference, Dec 2025
Rituel Rond Euthanasie, Breda, Netherlands. 27 November 2025.
"The truth about last words." EndWell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiIh2NAZwD4
Book launch event, Planet Word Museum, February 2025
NON-ACADEMIC ARTICLES
The Atlantic article that started it all, "How people really communicate at the end of life," January 2019. You can read it here without hitting the Atlantic's paywall.
"A cultural history of first words," Paris Review Online, 2019.
ACADEMIC ARTICLES
Language de-socialization: introducing a new concept. Signs & Society, 2025.
Unpacking Ritual Last Words as Rituals and Words. Mortality, 2025
EXCERPTS from Bye Bye I Love You
https://nautil.us/the-hallucinatory-thoughts-of-the-dying-mind-1189807/
https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/the-hallucinatory-thoughts-of-the-dying-mind/
https://www.popsci.com/science/the-hallucinatory-thoughts-of-the-dying-mind/
https://lithub.com/what-our-first-and-last-words-reveal-about-the-way-we-express-ourselves/
https://nextbigideaclub.com/magazine/next-big-idea-clubs-february-2025-must-read-books/52911/
RADIO INTERVIEWS
KQED
https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101909002/the-stories-behind-our-first-and-last-words
National Public Radio's 1a https://the1a.org/segments/the-cultural-significance-of-our-first-and-last-words/
Deutschradio https://www.droesser.net/category/allgemein/sprache-allgemein/
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's "The Sunday Magazine"
Talk Europe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQSDt396HTM
John Kelly on Sirius Radio XM
RADIO COVERAGE
https://waywordradio.org/first-words-last-words/
PRINT MENTION/PRESS RELEASE
https://www.mpi.nl/news/michael-erards-bye-bye-i-love-you-explores-first-and-last-words-language
PRINT INTERVIEWS/PROFILES
https://literaryashland.org/?p=12090
https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/news/%E2%80%98mama%E2%80%99-%E2%80%98farewell%E2%80%99
https://www.nemokennislink.nl/publicaties/taal-raakt-aan-de-oorsprong-van-onze-soort/
PODCASTS
PRINT REVIEWS
https://www.economist.com/culture/2025/02/27/finding-meaning-in-peoples-first-words-and-their-last
https://4columns.org/dillon-brian/bye-bye-i-love-you
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/terminal-delirium/
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-thing-youve-been-saying-your-whole-life/
https://mashedradish.com/2025/02/
https://ninamaclaughlin.substack.com/p/a-painters-portals-languages-starts
Journal of the Medical Library Association https://jmla.mlanet.org/ojs/jmla/article/view/2146
Review in CHOICE Connect: Journal of the Association of College and Research Libraries
Review in European Legacy Journal
