Autumn's Secretary

poetry-film

Salena Godden

Oct 01, 2024

Transcript

*this audio is taken from audiobook With Love, Grief and Fury read by author Salena Godden and available now and wherever you like to listen to audiobooks…

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Hello there my comrades,

Today is October 1st, so it seems fitting I should share this poem with you.

It is pouring with rain as I type this, the sky is grey porridge. I’m at my desk and racing to finish the new draft of the new novel this month, it’s so close now.

I’m at the stage of writing where I have no idea why I am doing this and who cares, but I know I care and therefore must keep going so I will be where I want to be with this story, and say what I mean to say, which is a very big and scary thing. Right now writing hurts, it is a bit like stirring a risotto, you think you made a mistake and you have pot of weird raw rice soup, but you keep slowly stirring, and very slowly adding the stock, and then all of a sudden the risotto thickens and comes together and the rice is cooked perfectly and it is the right consistency and so delicious and creamy and you cannot believe you made it. I have awful neck and shoulder ache from stirring my novel for all these months but it is starting to thicken and colour. I keep strange hours, and then when I look up from the pages, the fictional world feels more real than the actual here and now. I prefer this mad dream of the world … this mad reality hurts too much.

Thank you to my dear family and friends who came to see me in Hastings. My September happy moment was going home to headline Hastings Book Festival with my sister the mighty Anita Rani. We had such a wonderful weekend, caught the last of the warm sunshine, seaside flavoured walks and talks and books. Thank you to everyone that came to see us. I am so sorry our show wasn’t recorded or filmed, we’ll have to bring our big conversation to another festival in the future.

For those that like to listen to poetry and book chats, I recently had a gorgeous conversation and deep dive into poetry with Asli on the In Book Company podcast, it is out now, so please do tune in here …

Talking of books and podcasts, I’m going to be a guest on the new episode of Backlisted Podcast chatting about my hero Octavia Butler and her strikingly prescient novel ‘Parable of The Sower’ — the show goes online from October 8th. This podcast was recorded LIVE upstairs at Foyles on Charing Cross Road with Una McCormack and John Mitchinson. It was a beautiful evening, I hope that comes across on the recording, I felt so happy, blessed and lucky to be invited to chat about one of my all-time favourite authors with Una and John. Thank you

Coming up this month, here in the UK it is National Poetry Day and Black History Month, I have a handful of lovely literary festivals, book events and adventures in poetry, please scroll down for some dates, and come see me if you can. Thanks for tuning in you beautiful people, thank you for subscribing to this blog. Hope to see you here and there and soon,

Happy apple scrumping and conkering,

sgxx