Chelene KnightTag

Acknowledging Fear in Writing

“Don’t tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief’s wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear’s caul.” – Toni Morrison Fear.Fear of the first draft, fear of spiders, fear of ...

Quick and Dirty on Communication and Inviting Writers to Do All the Things

It’s a beautiful thing when writers make money. It’s an incredible feeling to open up your email and see all the love, invites, and possible project collaborations. This influx is not constant, it ...

The Need for More Non-Traditional Mentorship in Canadian Publishing

When I was in school, the act of reading books was just that, reading books. I wasn’t categorizing them. I wasn’t thinking about publishing, editors, marketability, or whether or not a book was considered ...

The Unselfish Act of Being Alone

 I want to talk about the power and necessity of being alone.It’s 4:30 am and I should be asleep, but jet lag is real. And I can’t shake the feeling that I shouldn’t be thinking about exhaustion ...

The Surgical Evolution of a Poem

Last spring one of my students confessed that she wasn’t sure what she was writing was real poetry because she didn’t know a lot about technique and form, and she was concerned that her poetic toolbox ...

On Building a House

When I was a young girl throwing myself into books, I I remember how I used to pull random books from library shelves without concern about what the book was about or who wrote it. I ran my hands down ...

Heads or Tails: On Writing Myself Into the Narrative

Last spring I competed for—and won—an executive position in the arts. When I found out, I was thrilled because, let’s be honest, the industry is predominantly cis, white, and male, and I was all ...

Why you should re-read books

I am a big reader, but I am an even bigger re-reader. Yes, I have a mountainous stack of to be read books, but I believe that it’s important to my writing practice—and to my basic existence—to dive ...

On Hanging Laundry

I have an obsession with laundry hung on lines. The image literally stops me in my tracks. There’s so much thought put into the way the sleeves of shirts are pinned just close enough to the hem of a ...

Have You Hugged Your Google Sheets Lately? How Spreadsheets Helped Me Create Space for My Trauma

Coffee, walking your dog, getting ready for work, breakfast, more coffee, what you missed on Twitter while you were asleep, what fires to fight on Twitter, what fires to diffuse on Twitter, getting more ...