Safekeeping: A Writer’s Guided Journal for Launching a Book with Love by Chelene Knight

Brilliant and beautiful from beginning to end. While appearing to be a workbook, it is also a playbook and meditation for writers, as well as creatives. Knight has written the prompts and guidance to be personable, relatable and simplified while going deep and challenging the readers to pause and be authentic.

The foreword, by Ivan Coyote, sets the rest up perfectly for success. It summarizes what to prepare for and the value of diving in heart first.

My only hesitation with this format is that I dislike writing in the book itself which Knight encourages the reader to do. Instead, I took her prompts and was inspired to blog about them and write them out in a separate notebook. The other bit I had trouble with was that this book offers far more than what is alluded. It offers tremendous insight on book launches, yes, though it also challenges the reader to consider why they write before having something to launch.

Knight masterfully takes us through her experiences without being daunting or pretentious; instead, she breaks down what one should focus on and explains how she has learned from her own mistakes, including burnout. Knowing that she lived through her own ups and downs ensured I was able to relate, react and respond in kindness and understanding.

This is a book I will recommend to most of my writer friends, aspiring authors and creatives and will revisit again and again.

CHELENE KNIGHT is the author of Let It Go, Braided Skin, and the memoir Dear Current Occupant, winner of the 2018 Vancouver Book Award and longlisted for the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature. Her novel, Junie, won the 2023 Vancouver Book Award, was longlisted for the inaugural Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, and was a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ fiction. Chelene is the founder of Breathing Space Creative, home to the Thrive Coaching Program.

Publisher: House Of Anansi Press (January 7th, 2025)
Paperback: 9″ H x 6″ W x 1″ L | 256pp
ISBN: 9781487013073

Sarah Butland

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I am a struggling artist, a challenging and challenged mother who always thinks she is failing, an emerging freelance writer and reporter, an author with my name on several books crossing genres and always hoping to find more readers who enjoy them.

I am also a successful artist, a wonderful and thriving mother of one, a reacher towards both people and dreams despite all of the turned backs and obstacles in my way. I am a thriving freelance writer and reporter, an author loved by enough readers to make it worthwhile and a discombobulated conundrum who loves to hear new music, tell new tales and meet new authors. And I’m doing something I always dreamed of doing – reviewing books to support others as well as myself and my family.