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I'm devoted to following the intricacies of language and where it takes me. I'm ardent about words and what they evoke in our minds and imaginations, the worlds they create. And I'm constantly learning, a student of the writer's craft, eager to open myself each day to the endless possibilities this calling presents. No wonder I love to write!
Writing requires exertion, the ability not to give in when we've received yet another rejection. Some people call this perseverance. But is that what it takes to keep writing in the face of adversity, rejection, and lack of recognition? The word sounds so duty bound, so driven. To me, a better word is discipline because at the root is disciple, though there are many lovely variations on this word that I actually prefer: student, follower, learner, devotee.
About me? A Canadian by birth, 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 (I was the first woman to work on the SF docks and almost got my legs broken), founded and managed a homeless shelter in Marin County, and eventually earned two Master’s degrees (one in Creative writing and one in the Humanities).
I have published reviews, interviews, short fiction, poetry, travel pieces, essays, and memoir in over 170 American and Canadian venues. Pen-L Publishing released my novels Fling! (2015) and Freefall: A Divine Comedy (2019). Curva Peligrosa, another novel, was published in September 2017 by Regal House Publishing. My poetry collection All This was published in 2011 and another, California Dreaming, was released on June 27, 2023, and my poetry chapbook No More Kings came out in 2020. Shanti Arts Press is publishing my hybrid memoir Dreaming Myself into Old Age: One Woman's Search for Meaning on September 19, 2023. I currently teach creative writing at the University of San Franciso's Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning. I also blog at https://lilyionamackenzie.com.
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