The Living that Took Place: An Interview with Chelene Knight by The Generous Imaginary

Introduction by Minelle Mahtani

This summer, I was mulling over potential core texts for my graduate class at the Institute for Social Justice—a new course entitled, “Keeping the Creative In Mind: the Poetics and Politics of the Imagination.” I was immediately compelled to include Chelene Knight’s work on my syllabus.

I was, of course, familiar with Chelene’s writing as I knew her to be an award-winning poet and memoirist. I had no doubt she would have much to share about what the creative process meant to her. But I was even more richly rewarded when I discovered that Chelene had a new book—Junie—coming out a few weeks later. I read Junie in two days, devoured it whole, and revisited it slowly and deliciously in the days that followed.

I have said before that the book is luminescent, but, to be honest, that really does not cover it. It is much more than that. Chelene’s first novel, Junie, offers us an intricate and intimate look at a shrouded geography that has been mostly overlooked in Canadian fiction—Hogan’s Alley in the 1930s, in Vancouver. In a multi-textured, multi-voiced novel, Knight offers us a love letter to this extraordinary place.

The course revolves around students crafting and finessing what I call the anti-colonial question. I started thinking about questions more carefully after I spent three years interviewing BIPOC writers on my radio show at Roundhouse Radio, 98.3 Vancouver. Through this experience, I learned a lot of lessons about interviewing. The course explores that terrain by asking its own question; namely: how can we create generous and open spaces for authors who go on publicity tours, authors who have borne their souls in their books? And how can we, as a class, welcome in authors to our class, who then are generous enough to discuss their creative process with us—how do we do that with reverence, respect, and care?

Chelene’s first novel, Junie, offers us an intricate and intimate look at a shrouded geography that has been mostly overlooked in Canadian fiction—Hogan’s Alley in the 1930s, in Vancouver.

Chelene spoke to us via Zoom in late October, and entertained all our questions with precision and patience, and we are immensely grateful. What follows is a transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.

The Generous Imaginary: I love the way that you talk about motherhood in the book—it was really healing for me. I haven’t felt this way about a book since I read Another Country by James Baldwin and that book rocked my world. It felt like such a gift for you to write this and share it with all of us. How did you come to know the characters? I’m wondering if you were discovering them as you were writing them, or if they were coming to you fully fledged?

Chelene Knight: For me, the characters were always there. I always had these characters in my head and Junie is a character I had for maybe 30-plus years. She’s just been hanging out with me, and I’ve been getting to know her, but I never really had a home for her. I never had a space to bring her into. That’s what the place of the novel did for her.

When I thought about my feelings around Hogan’s Alley and what happened to this neighbourhood, and knowing that I had this character, I thought, what would happen if I brought these two together? When I did that, I felt like the other characters started to write themselves, which was fun to see happen on the page. As I got to see Junie interacting with the other characters, I realized that I was going to have to change or create a unique shape and structure for this book for her to be heard and seen in a particular way. Those vignettes that you see, the first-person present-tense vignettes with Junie, are actually her slowing down and calling on her introverted self to communicate with the world around her and communicate with herself essentially. I had to think about not only the shape and the structure, but also what is it that Junie sees when she stops, when she slows down. What is it that Junie feels when she’s thinking about wanting to belong and wanting to feel this sense of love? I had to break against some traditional rules when it comes to fiction to really have that come across.

What is it that Junie feels when she’s thinking about wanting to belong and wanting to feel this sense of love? 

But, fun fact, if you remove all of Junie’s first-person vignettes out of the narrative and you line them up one by one, you actually see Junie building this language for love. You almost have two different stories kind of combined into one. Fun little magic trick.

TGI: I love that you mentioned magic tricks because much of your book felt like magic to me in that you were able to create this imaginary of the East End that felt so pulsating with light. And when I was reading, I came across the playlist that you created. I was reading and listening side by side, and I felt the list was such a good companion to the text, so full of this vibrant energy—similar to your characters and similar to the characters of the East End, all these hundreds of lives. I am curious about that playlist and whether those were the songs that you were listening to as you were writing this book or if they were more of an afterthought.

But, fun fact, if you remove all of Junie’s first-person vignettes out of the narrative and you line them up one by one, you actually see Junie building this language for love.

CK: That’s a really good question. Those were definitely songs that I was listening to. They’re not necessarily all fitting into the era of the book, but, when I’m writing, I like to match my music with the feel and the vibe of whatever it is I happen to be writing. That was important to me. I think writing fiction, in general, is a very strange thing. I’m so used to poetry. I’m so used to creative nonfiction. To allow myself to fall into this imaginary world, I thought deeply about my collaborators and the kind of music I wanted to attach to this project, and about the emotional elements of the music as well. When I was writing Dear Current Occupant—my hybrid-poetic memoir—music was a very important element in writing because there’s this emotional shape-shift that happens throughout the writing process. I would hear this upbeat song and feel like I could see Maddie on stage and then shift into this more emotional song about home and belonging, and then I could see Junie, up close. It also allowed me to get close to my characters and feel what they were feeling. Music is such an important element when it comes to writing for me.

TGI: I’m struck by the fact that Junie has been with you for such a long period of time. Can you talk more in depth about what it felt like to carry her with you for so long? How did you maintain her presence? Were you jotting things down as you went, or was it all one big outpour? How does it feel now that she exists in this book?

She was always just a whisper, and she was so smart and intuitive that she knew exactly when to show up.

CK: Junie, being such a quiet character and such a quiet human being, I didn’t feel her presence as heavy at all. She was always just a whisper, and she was so smart and intuitive that she knew exactly when to show up. She knew when to be quiet, and she knew when to change my view for me, turn my head and make me see something else. She was a companion for sure, and it’s interesting because this isn’t always how characters come to life, right? Sometimes it’s this idea for a story that comes first, and, for me, it wasn’t. It was having this character and knowing when it was time for her to leave my head and exist on the page. And that happened when I couldn’t let go of this idea of Hogan’s Alley. Knowing there was this Black community that existed that I had no connection to, and I had no real understanding of. Being born and raised in Vancouver, that just didn’t sit well with me. Why don’t I know about this place? Why don’t I know about this living that took place there? I’m always talking about that, living, because I feel like that is something we don’t document. We’re often talking about these historical places, these businesses, these landmarks, but we’re not talking about the living that took place. Junie tapped on something in my brain and said, “Let me out here, drop me off here.” It’s like she pulled the cord on the bus. She’s like, “I want to get off here.” I just paid close attention to that and let her do what she needed to do.

In terms of all the other characters, Junie was the one that I paid the most attention to. I’m happy she’s in the world now and that she’s holding space, and I’m curious to see what these ripples are. Now that she’s out there, I would love to see where she goes. Now I’m the one paying attention and I’m in her ear, whispering. It’s interesting how that relationship has shape-shifted.

We’re often talking about these historical places, these businesses, these landmarks, but we’re not talking about the living that took place.

TGI: In the author’s note, you mention how you chose to fictionalize places although your novel is set in a period that actually happened. How did you go about researching for this piece? I noticed myself, as a reader, sometimes expecting there to be some “time skip” to when Hogan’s Alley was demolished—because that’s the thing you think about with Hogan’s Alley. I’m curious about your decision to keep the story there and wonder if that looming event informed the writing process or how you saw the story at all.

CK: Now we’re getting to the guts of the book. I love this question so much. This is one of those really difficult decisions I think writers have to make when they’re creating something that spans a huge amount of time. Originally, the book spans 50-plus years. The book started in 1980, when Junie, in her early ’60s, after having lived in Toronto, moved back to Hogan’s Alley to kind of see how it’s changed. I can’t believe I started it in 1980. It was ridiculous. But I feel like the book wasn’t⁠⁠⁠—and this was Junie speaking to me—the book wasn’t what it was supposed to be. I did cover the destruction, I had all of that happening and playing out, but it didn’t fit into what I wanted this book to do.

I always think about my book’s action: what is it going to do once it exists? I wanted to highlight that living and that loving, and I will keep repeating that. That is the focus and the core of the book.

I also wanted to highlight Junie as a very different kind of Black female character, someone who is so different from what we are used to seeing. I wanted to highlight her introversion; I wanted to highlight the fact that she could predict things happening because she was so connected to her environment. I said, “Listen, I’m going to have to scale this back and I’m going to have to just focus on this heyday in this six-year period and really be able to showcase not only who Junie was, but also how she moved and thrived in that neighbourhood.” Even though she could predict that this thing was coming 30 years in the future. She could see this neighbourhood was going to be demolished, she could feel it—and that’s a heavy weight to carry, and all of that came out onto the canvas. I said, “You know what, that’s the image and that’s the feeling I want to leave the reader with.” We didn’t get a happy ending really with Hogan’s Alley, even though there’s a lot of work being done now to bring some things back, and I really wanted my readers to feel that weight. And to leave with a sense of Junie, so they could take a little piece of her around every day. Those are big decisions that we have to make with our writing.

I wanted to highlight the fact that she could predict things happening because she was so connected to her environment.

I always cite one of my mentors, Wayde Compton, who said, when you feel that rupture moment, pay attention to that because that means your book is taking a complete 180. And it means you’re going to have to start over, you’re going to have to do it again, but it’s a good thing when that happens. Deciding not to cover the neighbourhood being demolished was very thought out. It was difficult to figure out how to navigate that, but I’m very happy with how it all came together.

The research was a really important element. That’s what allowed me to really see that I needed to focus on the living and loving, and maybe let go of some of the things we already knew or that we’ve already been told. My research focused not only on Hogan’s Alley as a neighbourhood, but also on that area of time and that era: What was happening? What were people doing? Researching all the different locations and businesses, and what was happening at the time, I felt like there’s so many little stories inside of the bigger story; those are just more books that need to be written. It was this idea of, “Well, if I were to document these places, what would be lost and taken away from the living? Could I really put these two things in the same space together?” I didn’t feel like I could do that. I love that question. I could go on for hours, but I won’t. [laughing]

TGI: I would like to ask a question that pulls apart another key theme in your book, which is the queer elements within it. I found that you wrote about queerness developing through adolescence in such an intimate and sapphic way. The story takes place in a time where queerness was probably more stigmatized and shunned, much more of a secretive thing, which is something that your book gets into. I am interested in hearing your thoughts on the subject.

CK: Beautiful questions, thank you so much. When we look deep in ourselves as human beings, there’s always something. There’s always an element there that sits dormant. Something that doesn’t get the light of day, it doesn’t get to be explored. I thought deeply about that, too, especially when I look back at my own relationships as a young girl, and I think about how I saw love. What was love to me, and what did that look like? And how did I try to define that for myself? And these are the same conversations Junie and I would have together. We’d both talk about love, and I think a really important element, especially as it relates to queerness in the book, is this idea of love evolving over time. As we grow as human beings, we can look at love in a different way.

I think about being 20-something and how love was so deeply connected to desire and sex, right? So that’s how we see love. As we experience the world, as we pay attention to the world, it’s like, wait a minute, maybe that’s not love. It’s this, or it’s this or it’s this. And so, Junie moves through all these different ponderings to find out not only what love is, but also what it is that she’s looking for. Is she looking for a partner? Is she looking for a mother figure—this ideal mother figure in her head? Or is she just trying to find her self?

As I was writing her, I thought about my own experience as a little girl and the things that I wondered about and the questions that I had in my head; these are the same things that Junie carried as well.

TGI: My question is about Earth’s sixth mass extinction. How do you write a story about human characters while also giving so much attention to the agency of the environmental characters (or the setting) both built and natural? How did you approach the story when you knew that the world it takes place in would be destroyed?

CK: When we write these things, I feel like, there’s always this fear of something not being fully understood, or something being skipped past. And when I decided to write a novel, I said, “Okay, I’m going to do this my way.” There’s going to be so many people who are going to skip pages and zoom past all these things that I’m doing, looking for that narrative arc, looking for what we’re told to look for in a novel. And I said, “I could do that.” That’s not a problem for me. But if I’m going to write this book and it’s going to carry the action that I want it to carry, I’m going to have to slow down. And so, when we slow down, I think there’s an immediate grieving that happens, just from slowing down, because, as soon as we really pay attention, the first thing that comes to mind is “what else have I missed.” And there’s a huge grieving process attached to that.

I started to pay attention to my five senses—this is the poet in me again. I wrote a lot of the book while walking and sitting in the old neighbourhood and sitting in that Strathcona neighbourhood. I closed my eyes a lot and paid attention to what I could hear or what I could smell. I thought, “Let me hold those things, no one can take those.” Grieving is a very important element. I wrote about a neighbourhood that I knew was going to be demolished. I think that’s also why I called on Junie, to recreate it, to re-imagine something. So, throughout the book, she’s painting these things, but she’s also documenting and she’s building a new history.

I think there’s an immediate grieving that happens, just from slowing down, because, as soon as we really pay attention, the first thing that comes to mind is ‘what else have I missed.’

TGI: I admired your integration of art into the story, and what it truly entails. The beauty of art itself, the coming together as a community to appreciate and create, how art worked as an outlet for Junie, and most importantly how, in the book and in real life, art is such a valid form of knowledge production. We often discuss in our class the significance of knowledge production, and I wanted to ask how did this concept inform and inspire your development of setting, the characters, and their own desires?

CK: I know for a fact that, as soon as I took Junie and dropped her off in this neighbourhood, the story for me evolved as a movie; I could see this playing out, and so, when I was writing, I was simply trying to recreate what I was seeing unfold. You know, behind my eyelids, which was difficult to do, but I think this idea of creating something with a different shape and form is also important to me. So, having this book be in print form, that’s great. But also, how can I take this story and shape-shift it and have it communicate with maybe folks who would never pick up a novel?

TGI: Something I’ve been thinking a lot about is the way you give yourself permission to really let your process be what it is. And the work you do with your studio seems so permission-granting for other writers and creatives. In other interviews, you’ve mentioned that you’ve been writing since you were pretty young, but that you didn’t take it seriously until later in your life. So, I’m just curious about how you give yourself permission to dive in, to play with all these styles of writing and break moulds?

CK: I love that question, too. When I think about when I finally said, “Okay, I’m going to be that writer that I always wanted to be, I’m going to give myself that opportunity,” I can’t take all the credit for that as much as I would like to. It was my son who said, when I was walking him to school, “Why don’t you just go take that writing programme?” I’m a single parent of this nine-year-old human being, I don’t want to put all this money into this programme. Again, it’s that idea of sacrifice, right? But my son said to me, “I can see this is something that you need to do, so just go ahead and do it.” Some permission there was the start of everything.

When it comes to the process of writing itself, to be able to allow yourself to see and experience all the possibilities, you must manage to let go and hold on at the same time. There are always these non-negotiables that I have for every single project. Every single writing project, there are certain things that I just will not let go of. In order to write a story, it has to, one, make sense to me, two, allow me to use my skill set to its fullest extent and, three, I need to be allowed to tell it in a way that feels authentic to me as a human being. I must be able to do all these weird things: I have to be able to add poetry if I want to, I have to be able to break the narrative, and to install the narrative if I have to. All these movements are very intentional. I think you should give yourself permission to play, to have this unstructured play, and then to go back into that material and say, “Okay, what of this do I want to keep and why? Why don’t I want to let go of this?”

Because you will face editors who say you should do this, or you should do that. I’ve had someone say to me, “Why is your book set in Hogan’s Alley?” I felt it in my stomach, like something was removed from my body physically. I absorbed that comment, so you must pay attention to things like that. But this idea of permission and process comes in waves, and the more you sit with your project the more you will have this, almost, confidence as you move through. Then, when your project is out in the world, it’s like somebody presses a restart button, and you do it all over again for the next project, build up that same process and permission and confidence.

So, it’s this circle or this cycle, but it’s not easy. I will say that it’s not easy at all to give yourself permission to create in a way that feels good for you. That’s why my studio exists also, so that I can help other writers discover that.

TGI: What are you looking forward to, for yourself?

CK: I am looking forward to every day just feeling relaxed and feeling like, whatever I do, even if it’s nothing, that it’s going to be the best thing for me that day. I’m looking forward to just being able to move in whatever way I need to without worry, without fear. All that ever happened, I don’t know. We can ask Junie. I think Junie wants the same thing.

TGI: As you have been bringing Junie into this conversation, I’ve just been wondering, is she still present with you? Is she here? Is there anything that Junie might want to talk about? How does she feel being in this space? Being brought into this space?

CK: I love it. I think Junie is probably here listening. I think she would just be absorbing. She would be building up an inventory and she would probably tell us to keep going. Keep talking, keep having these kinds of conversations because, so often, we put things out in the world, we have no idea what these ripples will look like, what they will feel like, where they will go. Even though we’re not physically in the same space, holding space together feels incredible to me. To know that you folks have read this book so deeply and that you’re asking such beautiful questions, that’s what I wanted. That’s what I wanted this book to do: make people question what it means to exist, or what it means to hold a particular space for a short amount of time. That’s what we’re all doing here right now. I think Junie would be loving this and she’s writing everything down, just like I’m doing.

Chelene Knight is the author of Braided Skin and the memoir Dear Current Occupant, winner of the 2018 Vancouver Book Award, and long listed for the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature. Her essays have appeared in multiple Canadian and American literary journals, plus The Globe and Mail, The Walrus, and the Toronto Star. Her work is anthologized in Making Room, Love Me True, Sustenance, The Summer Book, and Black Writers Matter, winner of the 2020 Saskatchewan Book Award. Her poem “Welwitschia” won the 2020 CV2 Editor's Choice award. She was short listed for PRISM’s 2021 short forms contest. Chelene's novel is forthcoming with Book*hug Press in 2022, and her book on Black self-love and joy is forthcoming with HarperCollins Canada in 2023.

Knight was the previous managing editor at Room Magazine, and the previous festival director for the Growing Room Festival in Vancouver. She has also worked as a professor of poetry at the University of Toronto. Chelene is now founder of her own literary studio, Breathing Space Creative, through which she’s launched The Forever Writers Club, a membership for writers focused on creative sustainability. Chelene works as a literary agent with the Transatlantic Agency.

Minelle Mahtani is a Muslim, South-Asian and Iranian scholar, writer, broadcaster, and teacher. She currently holds the Brenda and David McLean Chair in Canadian Studies at UBC where she also teaches at the Social Justice Institute. She has published the book Mixed Race Amnesia: Resisting the Romanticization of Multiraciality with UBC Press. Minelle hosted a radio show at Roundhouse Radio, 98.3 Vancouver. Her programme was unapologetically anti-racist and feminist in its approach, focusing on the stories of systemically disadvantaged communities. The show, entitled “Sense of Place,” won four awards, including a Canadian Ethnic Media Association award and a British Columbia Association of Broadcasters award for best community service reporting. Minelle’s writing has appeared in Rigorous and VICE, and her piece in The Walrus won the Gold Medal for best personal essay in the Digital Publishing Awards competition this year. Her memoir May it Have a Happy Ending is forthcoming with Doubleday/Penguin Random House.