Chelene KnightTag

Bring Back the Good ‘Ol Days of Getting Lost in Fiction

“The anonymous woman in bed beside me adamantly shakes my shoulder.”—Amber Dawn, Sodom Road Exit“Sometimes we would hide in the closet when the drunks came home from the bar.”—Tanya Tagaq, ...

Literature in Isolation

“When this is over, remember how important books and movies and television and music and public radio were to your experience and your ability to get through a really hard time.”—Elisabeth de Mariaffi In ...

Trips Down Memory Lane: On Inhaling Old Notebooks

I’ve always envisioned Fall as the best season for fresh starts and rebirth, while Spring has always been a reflective season where I look back at previous months and years while documenting and acknowledging ...

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 ...