🎙 INTERVIEW [FREE]: Writing with Love, Grief, and Fury: In Conversation with Salena Godden

​** This is a LIVE interview with Salena Godden about the craft of writing and reality of building a writing career. Attendees will be sent a recording after the interview. **

​What does it mean to live a creative life without boundaries? How do you sustain passion, fury, and hope across memoir, poetry, and the novel?

​Salena Godden is a poet, memoirist, novelist, activist, songwriter, and performer who has carved a fearless career both on the stage and on the page. Described as a “form-defying firestarter,” she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2020. Her debut novel Mrs Death Misses Death won the Indie Book Award for Fiction and the People’s Book Prize, and her latest work includes the acclaimed poetry collections With Love, Grief and Fury and Pessimism is for Lightweights: 30 Pieces of Courage and Resistance.

​In this conversation, Salena will reflect on her writing life, from years of rejection to the freedom of following her own voice. We will explore how she approaches form and genre, the role of optimism in her creative practice, and what it means to write with courage and conviction.

​We’ll explore:

• ​Her journey from rejection to creative freedom

• ​Tips for writing memoir and poetry

• ​How she taps into and sustains her voice

• ​The role of hope and optimism in creativity

• ​Her approach to poetry and the novel

​About Salena Godden 

​Salena Godden FRSL is an award-winning novelist, poet and broadcaster of mixed Jamaican-Irish heritage. Her debut novel Mrs Death Misses Death was published by Canongate in 2021, it won the Indie Book Awards for Fiction and the People’s Book Prize, and was shortlisted for the British Book Awards and the Gordon Burn Prize.

​A hardback edition of Pessimism is for Lightweights - 30 pieces of courage and resistance was published by Rough Trade Books in 2023. The title poem is on permanent display at The Peoples History Museum in Manchester.

​A new full poetry collection With Love, Grief and Fury and literary childhood memoir Springfield Road - A Poets Childhood Revisited were published with Canongate in May 2024. Salena Godden is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Patron of Hastings Book Festival and an Honorary Fellow of West Dean, Sussex.

​Your London Writers' Salon Hosts:

​Parul Bavishi and Matt Trinetti are the co-founders of the London Writers' Salon, creators of the webby-nominated Writers' Hour daily writing sessions, and hosts of the London Writers' Salon podcast.

​Parul Bavishi has been an editor for over a decade. In addition to running LWS she helps thriller, YA and non-fiction writers level up their craft and get published. She writes and edits for the Story Grid. She has worked as an editor and literary scout at Random House, Quercus & Eccles Fisher. She analyses TV hit shows (Killing Eve, Ozark, Game of Thrones) on the Story Grid Showrunners Podcast.

​Matt Trinetti is a writer, publisher, TEDx speaker, and facilitator. In addition to running LWS, Matt designs programs to help unfulfilled professionals pursue creative work, start businesses, and reinvent their careers. Matt's work has appeared in Quartz, Observer, Creative Mornings, and on his blog GiveLiveExplore.

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