Ubud Writers And Readers Festival 2013

This 'Springfield Road' crowd funding adventure now brings me to Bali for the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival It's a little like Hay-On-Wye Festival, but swap the beautiful valleys and soft sage hills on the borders of Wales for the humid heat of the middle of a lush and emerald Bali with a glorious tropical back drop of palm trees, banana plantations and rice paddies. 
With over 191 writers, thinkers, artists and musicians from 25 countries participating in over 220 events across 50 venues all in the arty town of Ubud, needless to say 
I'm so looking forward to the whole experience, listening to exotic music and watching the traditional dancers and ceremonies, to checking out new poets and authors from all over the world, here come heady days and long, long nights of lively and interesting talk and lots of laughs and more...

October 12 /  Bar Luna / Reading Lives with Salena Godden & Bernice Chauly 

October 12 / Bar Luna / 'Book Club Boutique in Bali' London Speakeasy 

October 13 / Left Bank / panel discussion / Memoir

October 13 /  Left Bank / poetry debate /  Page vs. The Stage

October 15 /  Left Bank / panel discussion /  Self Publishing / Crowd Funding

October 17 /  Bar Luna  / Festival Hangover / Performance and Party

  

sun rise at the Amarta Beach Cottage

'A Strong And Stiffly Worded Letter Should Do The Trick'

Dear war makers and war takers

Twitchy button pushers and mushroom cloud worshippers

Bomb botherers and gun polishers

Chemical weapon wielders and coup-cooers

Battle cry criers and army gatherers

Bullet loaders and knife sharpeners

Death collators, chief whips and spins and

Dear kings and dear lords and dear right honourables

To all the Dear Mr Presidents

And Dear Mr Prime ministers -

Thank you for taking some time to read this letter

I am writing to make a small request –

Please could you all just take a fucking day off

Go to the park, feed the ducks, read a book

Take a break and put down your war stirring spoons

Shush with your fighting talk

Stop with your itchy button pushy fingers

Quit being so trigger happy

Give your eye-for-an-eye campaign a rest

Just take some time out –

Do your laundry, water your plants, visit your mother

Pull a sickie, have a duvet day

Watch a whole season of Breaking Bad

But just stop.

  Read “A Strong and Stiffly Worded Letter” in full here

This poemfilm is also on my tumblr here

Autumn Equinox

Hello, how are you all? Here’s a little ditty I wrote last Sunday, whilst feeling the first damp chills of autumn and baking an apple and plum pie. Thanks for visiting this page, please scroll down for links to gigs and books and Springfield Road , Wishing you all a Happy Autumn Equinox - Lets go conkering!

Autumn Equinox

I hear the gentle padding of a fox

Old tomatoes sigh in my window box

I watch the swallows gather in flocks

The death of summer, Autumn equinox

 There’s a morning fog over Camden’s locks

Buy your woollen tights and thick boot socks

Soon time to turn back the clocks

The end of light, Autumn equinox

Pack away those summer frocks

I hear the death watch beetle knocks

Harvest moon, tide, crashes to the rocks

 Light the first fire, come close my love, its Autumn equinox.

(c) 2013. Salena Godden

  

Autumn Events and Festivals

Oct 11th-15th - Ubud Readers & Writers festival / Bali, Indonesia

Oct 28th - Unbound Books / Kings Place, London

Oct 26th - Patitude / The Fish Factory, London

Nov 8-10 - Aldeburgh Poetry Festival

Salena’s latest project, a memoir called Springfield Road, is being funded and produced by Unbound, an organisation that puts the power of publishing in the hands of the authors and readers. You can see a short film and read her crowd funding pitch here 

Discover the Springfield Road crowd funding journey on #tumblr here 

Listen to Springfield Road audio / radio archives on #mixcloud here

Kit Carless, Influx Press  
"I was disappointed to leave, aware that perhaps the ‘drinking town with a fishing problem’ was about to come alive at night and reveal itself to me. The deadbeat transformed into a hedonistic quest for liquored enlightenment – or perhaps I’ve just read too much of Salena’s work. Salena’s fictional Hastings is a seductive place and her writing is so powerful that her version of Hastings is now my version of Hastings.” Read more here