丁香园AV

It took Chelene Knight a while to be comfortable calling herself a writer. You could say she鈥檚 now making up for lost time. While she always knew she wanted to write, the hardworking single mom didn鈥檛 give herself the chance to pursue her passion until she joined The Writer鈥檚 Studio (TWS) at 丁香园AV. With one book published (Braided Skin, Mother Tongue Publishing, 2015) and another on the way (Dear Current Occupant, to be published by BookThug) today Chelene wholeheartedly embraces the career she always wanted. Fully immersed in the literary world, she also serves as managing editor for Room magazine and poetry editor for emerge, the TWS student anthology. Having focused on poetry in her first TWS experience, Chelene is now rejoining the program to try her hand at fiction. 

We sat down with Chelene to chat about her experience in The Writer鈥檚 Studio, what inspires her, and some of her goals for the future:

Chelene, have you always wanted to be a writer?
Always did. It鈥檚 so cool, you want to be something when you鈥檙e a kid and then, look, you鈥檙e doing it. It feels amazing. And when I was younger I was told I couldn鈥檛 do it, which makes it even sweeter. Some of my family said, 鈥淲hat are you ever going to write? You can鈥檛 write a book.鈥� And now I have a book, and when I held it, it was pretty amazing.

You got published quite quickly. How did that happen?
I think I had the book contract before I finished the program. Within two weeks of me sending it to Mother Tongue, the publisher sent me an email saying she loves the manuscript and wants to take more time with it over the holidays. So after Christmas she let me know that, yes, she wants to publish it. It was the best day.

How did you feel writing the first book compared to the second book?
Writing the first book was easier, because I had the support of The Writer鈥檚 Studio. I had that structure in place. I had someone pretty much always asking, 鈥淲hat did you write today?鈥� And we had to share a lot of our pieces. Dear Current Occupant was written 100% on my own, so I felt like it was a lot harder. I did workshop a lot of the pieces, but it was just a big struggle for me to get it out. And because it was so personal, sometimes I鈥檇 have to stop for months and put it away and then go back to it again. It was a different process but it was also amazing.

Was The Writer鈥檚 Studio program what you expected?
I didn鈥檛 know what to expect going in, and orientation day was pretty eye-opening. Everyone was sharing their experience, their educational backgrounds, and you would hear some people were already lawyers, they were doctors, they had their MFAs already. I didn鈥檛 have any of that. So right away I was intimidated, like, is this the right spot? Am I supposed to be here? But I think because of that I was a little bit hungrier. I wanted to absorb everything I could.

How was it for you going back to school?
The program gave me structure in a super supportive environment. It was also nice that it was part-time, because I鈥檓 a single parent. That was a big pressure, but I found out there were other single parents in the program, so I could relate to people immediately. I was worried it was going to be a bunch of young folks who are just doing this to kill time, and I鈥檓 taking it so seriously. It actually worked out really well. It was a good mix of people in their sixties, their twenties, thirties, mid-career. A really diverse group of people.

What did you gain throughout the program? How did it help prepare you?
The Reading Series was my first real introduction to sharing my work with an audience, which was terrifying. But had I not done that, I don鈥檛 think I would be where I am right now. You have to do interviews if your book comes out. You have to do a whole bunch of press stuff. So they include that focus in the program, but they don鈥檛 pressure you, and I think that鈥檚 nice.