Lily Iona MacKenzie's Blog, page 32
September 2, 2019
Do Writers Write for Particular Readers?
At a recent poetry reading, I was asked if I wrote for a particular ideal reader, something I hadn’t given much thought to. So here I am laboring on Labor Day in response to that question. When I’m writing non-fiction, which usually takes the essay form, I have to constantly think about what my reader […]
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August 26, 2019
Writers as Chameleons!
The other night I dreamt that I had at least seven different selves that I circulated among. I wasn’t surprised. My roles in the outer world shift regularly from writer to teacher to mother to wife to social director to cook. But I also realize that writing fiction, poetry, and non-fiction calls on very different […]
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August 19, 2019
How does writing novels give birth to the author?
The road to publishing a novel is a long one. When I reviewed my notes for my first published novel, Fling!, I was amazed to discover I had started working on it in 1999. When I first began, I had hoped to write a lyrical novel a la Virginia Woolf. Then my husband called my attention to […]
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August 12, 2019
What’s in a Name?
I’ve been thinking about names and how they inform our lives. When we’re born, our parents select a name for us that starts us on our journey. It might have some mythical weight to it, like Adam or Naomi. In that case, we’re already embedded in an archetypal story. The Biblical Adam makes me think […]
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August 5, 2019
Timing: Giving Birth to a Novel
When I give readings of my last published novel, Freefall: A Divine Comedy, I always spend time explaining that it didn’t come fully formed like Athena from Zeus’ forehead. I’d worked on parts of it for years, but eventually, the narrative solidified and attained its final shape. As is often the case for me, it […]
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July 29, 2019
What goes into launching a book for publication?
With a poetry collection (All This) and three novels published, I’ve experienced what it’s like to release a book into the world. Each work offers its own peculiarities. Partly it’s the difference in publisher (Little Red Tree Publishing released All This, Regal House Publishing put out my novel Curva Peligrosa, and Pen-L Publishing gave birth […]
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July 22, 2019
The Mystery of Language
I see a relationship between impressionism, some kinds of abstract paintings, and the poetry I want to write—of just suggesting something. Giving only enough information/detail to set the readers’ imagination working. I don’t want everything spelled out. I want mystery in my poems (and my prose)—new worlds. Here’s an example: Big Lucks She told […]
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July 15, 2019
For all writers: Marketing Madness?
Publishing three novels and a poetry collection has forced me to embrace the world of social networking. From it, I’ve discovered a whole culture that I hadn’t experienced before. For a few years, I lived on the periphery of Facebook. I started a Facebook page some time ago and friended (a word that didn’t exist […]
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July 8, 2019
Trusting Ourselves as Writers
“I write to make sense of my life.” John Cheever I’ve been reading Blake Bailey’s Cheever: A Life, and it’s been extremely illuminating in many ways. John Cheever, considered one of the best 20th Century short story writers, struggled at times, as most writers do, to trust his impulses in creating short stories and novels. Many […]
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July 1, 2019
Happy fourth anniversary to my novel Fling!
Today is the fourth anniversary of my first novel’s release: Fling! I had worked on this narrative for years. After such a long incubation, it was hard to believe it had made its way into the publishing world because Pen-L Publishing (http://www.pen-l.com/Fling.html) believed in it. I wrote then that “Finally having one of my novels […]
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