Born in Edmonton. Raised in Calgary. Currently living in the SF Bay Area. A high school dropout and a mother at 17, in my early years, I supported myself as a stock girl in the Hudson’s Bay Company, as a long distance operator for the former Alberta Government Telephones, and as a secretary (Bechtel Corp sponsored me into the States). I also was a cocktail waitress at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco; briefly broke into the male-dominated world of the docks as a longshoreman (and almost got my legs broken); founded and managed a homeless shelter in Marin County; co-created THE STORY SHOPPE, a weekly radio program for children that aired on KTIM in Marin County; and eventually earned two Master’s degrees (one in Creative writing and one in the Humanities). I’ve published reviews, interviews, short fiction, poetry, travel pieces, essays, and memoir in over 140 American and Canadian venues. Fling, one of my novels, was published in July 2015 by Pen-L Publishing. Bone Songs, another novel, will be published in the spring of 2016. My poetry collection All This was published in 2011. You can learn more about me at my blog: lilyionamackenzie.wordpress.com.
As a poet, I recognize poetry's tremendous importance to a society. Still, I can get caught up in the complexities of modern life: I have classes to teach, papers to read and grade, writing projects...
I'm always a puzzled by how writers can plan out a poem or story before even attempting the first sentence. Some do complete outlines, right down to the actual ending. Others have ideas they want to...
In my last post, "The Poetry in Dreams," I promised to talk next time about how one "gets" a poem. Here is my attempt to deal with that topic. To understand either a dream or a poem, we need to...
I've been thinking a good deal about dreams and the role they play in our lives. I've also been thinking about how they relate to poetry. In an expository writing class I was teaching, many students...
A Reader' Evolution: How Annie Oakley & Wonder Woman taught me to read!
As a pre-TV child (television arrived in Calgary in the early 50s, about ten years after it appeared in the U.S.), radio dramas fed my imagination: Boston Blackie; Suspense Theatre; and The Green...
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