{"id":56378,"date":"2018-05-10T19:41:54","date_gmt":"2018-05-10T19:41:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=56378"},"modified":"2018-05-10T19:41:54","modified_gmt":"2018-05-10T19:41:54","slug":"why-chelene-knight-wrote-letters-to-the-current-occupants-of-the-houses-she-lived-in-growing-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=56378","title":{"rendered":"Why Chelene Knight wrote letters to the current occupants of the houses she lived in growing up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why Chelene Knight wrote letters to the current occupants of the houses she lived in growing up<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

CBC Books<\/a>
\nCanadian Broadcasting Corporation<\/a>
\n2018-03-06<\/p>\n

Ryan B. Patrick<\/strong><\/a>, Associate Producer<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nChelene Knight<\/a> is an author based in Vancouver<\/a>. (Chelene Knight\/BookThug)<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Chelene Knight<\/a> is a Vancouver<\/a>-based writer and editor. Of Black and East Indian heritage, Knight’s Dear Current Occupant<\/em><\/a> mixes poetry and prose to tell a story about home and belonging, set in the 1980s and 1990s of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The book plays with genre by way of a series of letters addressed to the current occupants now living in the 20 different houses she moved in and out of with her mother and brother. Knight tells CBC Books<\/em> how she wrote Dear Current Occupan<\/em>t.<\/p>\n

A bus ride beginning<\/strong><\/p>\n

“The first draft was originally all poetry, but my publisher suggested I rewrite it as creative nonfiction. I tried to write this book in generic memoir form. I sat down wanting to write about some of my childhood experiences. But it couldn’t come out. I thought maybe it’s not the right time.<\/p>\n

“Then I was on the bus one snowy day and I passed by one of the houses that I lived in as a child and something sparked in me. I got off the bus and I stood in front of this house. I had a notebook with me and I started scribbling. The memories were coming back to me \u2014 flooding in \u2014 and it was this visceral thing where I needed to be in that place and then be transported back to those times.”…<\/p>\n

…Writing for others<\/strong><\/p>\n

“We always hear people say there are no Black people in Vancouver, but there are. I identify as a Black woman. I know there was a larger Black community in Vancouver many years ago, but people have been displaced. I definitely want to reach people who not only are of mixed ethnicity but who also identify as Black.<\/p>\n

“I’m writing this for the community that I wish were here now. So whether you are Black, of mixed race or can identify with the trauma parts of the book, I think there are different layers in the work where you can see something different every time. That’s what I like with the hybrid form, of poetry and prose.”<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chelene Knight is a Vancouver-based writer and editor. Of Black and East Indian heritage, Knight’s Dear Current Occupant mixes poetry and prose to tell a story about home and belonging, set in the 1980s and 1990s of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,395,19,13743],"tags":[2138,21842,9837,22979,28623,6790],"class_list":["post-56378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-autobiography","category-canada","category-interviews","tag-british-columbia","tag-canadian-broadcasting-corporation","tag-cbc-books","tag-chelene-knight","tag-ryan-b-patrick","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56378"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56379,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56378\/revisions\/56379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}