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Say No With Love: A Writing Workshop with Chelene Knight

Thursday, September 4, 2025

Upstart & Crow Studio

Description

Join Chelene Knight, award-winning author and founder of Breathing Space Creative Studio, for a transformative in-person workshop that could change the way you live and write.

For one special evening, Chelene brings her renowned Say No With Love Workshop to our studio. This offering is for writers who want to set nourishing boundaries, protect their creative energy, and shape a writing life they want to return to — again and again. No two creative lives look the same, and this workshop invites you to look closely at your life, your season, and your needs.

Through reflective writing, discussion, and the 7-step Say No With Love process, we’ll gently surface limiting beliefs (like “I don’t have time to write” or “I can’t give time to things that don’t pay me”) and explore how they shape your day-to-day choices. You’ll leave with your own Say No With Love Map — a simple, personalized tool that acts as a filter for decisions, helps you prioritize with clarity, and guides how you want to show up in both your writing life and beyond. Whether you are a brand new writer or a seasoned one, the only prerequisites are an open mind and a desire to create more space for creativity.

To support our non-profit programming and to help us cover costs, this workshop is $10. If you are experiencing barriers to attend, please reach out over email — we are happy to provide you with one of our reserved free-by-donation tickets. We have very limited seating and spots go quickly, so please reserve your place here!

More about Upstart & Crow:

Upstart & Crow is a not-for-profit creative studio and literary incubator that champions writers, readers and stories, and the role they play in shaping our lives. We develop original programs, support artists and revel in creative projects focused on Literature In Translation / Climate Solutions / Poetry / Civic Dialogue / Community & Skills Building … all with the aim of elevating the role of literature and storytelling in our lives. Find us on Granville Island, Gibsons and online at upstartandcrow.com.

Accessibility:

The main studio of our shop is accessible for folks with mobility aids. There is a washroom on the main floor available for attendees.

Questions: hello[at]upstartandcrow.com.

Chelene Knight

Chelene Knight is the author of Braided Skin (Mother Tongue 2015), 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 novel, Junie (Book*hug 2022) is winner of the 2023 Vancouver Book Award, long-listed for the inaugural Carol Shields Fiction Prize and a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Prize for LGBTQ fiction. Her book of narrative nonfiction, Let It Go: Free Yourself From Old Beliefs and Find a New Path To Joy is out with HarperCollins Canada. Chelene’s guided journal, Safekeeping: A Writer’s Guided Journal For Launching a Book With Love, is out now (Anansi 2025).

Her essays have appeared in multiple Canadian and American literary journals, plus the Globe and Mail, the WalrusWriter’s Digest, and the Toronto Star. Her work is anthologized in Making RoomLove Me TrueSustenanceThe 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 shortlisted for PRISM’s 2021 short forms contest.

Knight was the previous managing editor at Room magazine, and the previous festival director for the Growing Room Festival in Vancouver and previously worked as a literary agent with the Transatlantic Agency. Chelene Knight has also worked as a professor of poetry at the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia. She is founder of Breathing Space Creative Studio through which she’s launched her Bespoke Writing Mentorships which are thoughtfully designed to help writers elevate their craft, shape and develop their manuscripts, and deepen their connection to who they are as creatives. breathingspacecreative.com

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