Hello you beautiful people, my dear Unbound comrades, hello new friends,

How are you? It has been a while since we last spoke. I hope you're well and I thank you for your tweets and messages and for all your support and help with spreading the word about Springfield Road - You kind people.

Last weekend I read Springfield Road live and improvised new poetry at Ronnie Scotts at the Jazz Verse Jukebox. (pictured) My latest poem NO MEANS YES  is my response to those slimy internet 'pick up artists' and predatory motivational speakers, you can see a clip of that HERE 

Last week I had a meeting with team Unbound and can announce that we plan to launch the Springfield Road Audio Book this spring time, so get your ear holes ready for that. I don't know about you, but that sounds like a good excuse for a party to me...

Annnd talking of parties, I'm very excited that The Book Club Boutique will be taking Springfield Road to Springfield Road, Hastings on March 7th for a one-off exclusive party. It will be a intimate gig held inside the old Nat West Bank on the corner of Springfield Road, just for one night only. I'm so excited about it, there will be poets, writers, music and DJ's and much merry making. I remember that bank well, I recall one particularly hot summers afternoon playing dares and water fights with a school friend and running into that very bank with a water pistol and yelling 'stick 'em up' at the cashiers - oh how times haven't changed.

Please check out The Book Club Boutique facebook for our Hastings line up and details here

On Wednesday I'm reading at the first ever For Books Sake event in London. Then this weekend, Feb 20th, I'm off up to Auld Reekie, Edinburgh, to perform at fantastic Rally and Broad and also teach a Rally and Broad masterclass too. Also coming up the literary cabaret Speaky Spokey present a trio of Black British memoirs mining the forbidding 1970s, and I'll be reading alongside memoirists Colin Grant and Gabriel Gbadamosi at Kings Place, London, March 9th, tickets are selling fast here

My 2015 diary is getting very full up already, with writing jobs, new juicy projects, wicked gigs and fun times, I'll announce and confirm all my summer festival activities later. It looks like its gonna be another monster summer though! Bring it on! I'll be travelling in the US later this year, on a book-tour road-trip across America in the Autumn - so please watch out for news of that too. If you are based in the States, please keep an eye out, we may be coming to a book festival near you, lets connect, meet up and share some books, beers and laughs, because surely that is the point of all of this...

But I'm getting ahead of myself as usual. Right now it is only February and I'm all about the first daffodils...

Please scroll down for links to latest reviews, radio and gig dates.

Thank you for reading this far down the page.

There's more where this came from over at Waiting For Godden

Keep fighting the good fight!

Salena Godden

NEW! Indie Berlin Review, out today: 

"The tale is rich with reflections on memory and tradition, presence and absence, relatives and the past... I don’t know why, but I sometimes felt like I was prying on Salena, but it’s a book, a published book, and I was offered it." 

Read more here, 'Cured Meat' Author Polly Trope reviews Springfield Road

gigs, news and links:

Interview / Author Paul McVeigh interviews Salena Godden about memoir and writing

Interview / Rally and Broad / Six Questions for Salena Godden

Feb 18th: For Books Sake / Launch 'That's What She Said...' NEW spoken word event, London

Feb 20th: Rally and Broad / Oh Bondage Up Yours! Bongo Club, Edinburgh

March 7th:  The Book Club Boutique: The Bankhouse / Hastings

March 9th: Trio of  Black British Memoir / Grant, Godden & Gbadamosi / Kings Place, London

NPR Radio: Arun Rath interviews Salena Godden: 'All Things Considered'

New! Today: 'Springfield Road' reviewed by Polly Trope, IndieBerlin

"You bright, brave and beautiful thing.

It's hard to be first, but there you are,

Boldly doing what you gotta do..."