{"id":7869,"date":"2016-12-16T17:57:00","date_gmt":"2016-12-16T22:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/library.ryerson.ca\/asianheritage\/?page_id=7869"},"modified":"2026-01-07T18:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T23:36:07","slug":"chelene-knight","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/authors\/chelene-knight\/","title":{"rendered":"Chelene Knight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Chelene Knight is a native of Vancouver and a graduate of The Writers Studio at Simon Fraser University. Her father’s family was forced to flee from Uganda when the Indic or Asian peoples were expelled in the 1970s. Her mother is African American. Knight is currently the Managing Editor at Room Magazine<\/em>. Knight’s non-fiction works include Let It Go: Free Yourself from Old Beliefs and Find a New Path to Joy<\/em> (HarperCollins, 2024) and Safekeeping: A Writer’s Guided Journal for Launching a Book with Love<\/em> (Ambrosia, 2025). <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Poetry<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Braided Skin<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Toronto: Mother Tongue Publishing, 2015.
PS8621 .N53 B73 2015<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publisher’s Synopsis<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Braided Skin<\/em> \u2026 is the vibrant telling of experiences of mixed ethnicity, urban childhood, poverty and youthful dreams through various voices. Knight writes a confident rhythm of poetry, prose and erasure by using the recurring image of braiding\u2013a different metaphor than \u201cmixing,\u201d our default when speaking the language of race.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Fiction<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Junie<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Toronto: Book*hug Press, 2022.
PS8621.N53 J86 2022<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

1930s, Hogan\u2019s Alley\u2014a thriving Black and immigrant community located in Vancouver\u2019s East End. Junie is a creative, observant child who moves to the alley with her mother, Maddie: a jazz singer with a growing alcohol dependency. Junie quickly makes meaningful relationships with two mentors and a girl her own age, Estelle, whose resilient and entrepreneurial mother is grappling with white scrutiny and the fact that she never really wanted a child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Junie finds adulthood, exploring her artistic talents and burgeoning sexuality, her mother sinks further into the bottle while the thriving neighbourhood\u2014once gushing with potential\u2014begins to change. As her world opens, Junie intuits the opposite for the community she loves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Creative Nonfiction\/Autobiography<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Dear Current Occupant: A Memoir<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Toronto: Book*hug, 2018.
PS8621 .N53 D43 2018<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)<\/h4>\n

Ma misses the sun, warmth and colors of their faraway homeland, but her daughter sees magic in everything \u2014 the clouds in the winter sky, the \u201cfirework\u201d display when she throws an armful of snow into the air, making snow angels, tasting snowflakes. And in the end, her joy is contagious. Home is where family is, after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dear Current Occupant<\/em> is a creative nonfiction memoir about home and belonging set in the 80s and 90s of Vancouver\u2019s Downtown Eastside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using a variety of forms including letters, essays and poems, Knight reflects on her childhood through a series of letters addressed to all of the current occupants now living in the twenty different houses she moved in and out of with her mother and brother. From blurry and fragmented non-chronological memories of trying to fit in with her own family as the only mixed East Indian\/Black child, to crystal clear recollections of parental drug use, Knight draws a vivid portrait of memory that still longs for a place and a home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peering through windows and doors into intimate, remembered spaces now occupied by strangers, Knight writes to them in order to deconstruct her own past. From the rubble of memory she then builds a real place in order to bring herself back home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Awards and Honours<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

2018 City of Vancouver Book Award<\/a> (Winner)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Selected Criticism and Interpretation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Knight, Chelene, “Chelene Knight, October 30, 2019,” interview by Kim Davids Mandar, In Appropriate: Interviews with Canadian Authors on the Writing of Difference<\/em> (Guelph: Gordon Hill Press, 2020), 155-168.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Links<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Chelene Knight personal website<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publisher Book*hug<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publisher Mother Tongue Publishing<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author profile<\/a> with Shazia Hafiz Ramji from the Quill & Quire<\/em> website<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chelene Knight is a native of Vancouver and a graduate of The Writers Studio at Simon Fraser University. Her father’s family was forced to flee from Uganda when the Indic or Asian peoples were expelled in the 1970s. Her mother … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"parent":16,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7869","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7869"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21278,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7869\/revisions\/21278"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}