Lily Iona MacKenzie's Blog for Writers & Readers

The Ripening
The Ripening:
A Canadian Girl Grows Up

" A wildly inventive, consistently engaging, and amusing comic novel, but under its bright exterior lurk darker undertones and truths.... "

" A wildly inventive, consistently engaging, and amusing comic novel, but under its bright exterior lurk darker undertones and truths.... "

" Tillie’s grit and ability to face life’s challenges are inspiring, the seeds for later discovering her artist self. Tillie takes readers on a wild ride. Join her if you dare! "

Lily Iona MacKenzie Books
Curva Peligrosa
Curva Peligrosa

" A wildly inventive, consistently engaging, and amusing comic novel, but under its bright exterior lurk darker undertones and truths.... "

" A wildly inventive, consistently engaging, and amusing comic novel, but under its bright exterior lurk darker undertones and truths.... "

" A wildly inventive, consistently engaging, and amusing comic novel, but under its bright exterior lurk darker undertones and truths.... "

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FLING!
Fling!

" A wildly inventive, consistently engaging, and amusing comic novel, but under its bright exterior lurk darker undertones and truths.... "

" A wildly inventive, consistently engaging, and amusing comic novel, but under its bright exterior lurk darker undertones and truths.... "

"Fling! is both hilarious and touching. Every page is a surprise, and the characters! I especially loved Bubbles, one of the most endearing mothers in recent fiction. A scintillating read."

Lily Iona MacKenzie Books
Freefall
Freefall :
A Divine Comedy

" A wildly inventive, consistently engaging, and amusing comic novel, but under its bright exterior lurk darker undertones and truths.... "

" A wildly inventive, consistently engaging, and amusing comic novel, but under its bright exterior lurk darker undertones and truths.... "

" These fascinating characters will fill your imagination, defying expectations about aging, art, and what truly matters in life. "

Lily Iona MacKenzie Books
All This
All This

" A wildly inventive, consistently engaging, and amusing comic novel, but under its bright exterior lurk darker undertones and truths.... "

" A wildly inventive, consistently engaging, and amusing comic novel, but under its bright exterior lurk darker undertones and truths.... "

" Indicative of the title, the poems in All This range from the conventional lyric/narrative that captures an intense moment of emotion, an epiphany glimpsed briefly out of the corner of the eye, to the more experimental. "

Lily Iona MacKenzie Books
No More Kings
No More Kings

" A wildly inventive, consistently engaging, and amusing comic novel, but under its bright exterior lurk darker undertones and truths.... "

" A wildly inventive, consistently engaging, and amusing comic novel, but under its bright exterior lurk darker undertones and truths.... "

Each finely crafted poem in this powerful collection comes alive on the page while she traces the days’ journeys with a painter’s eye, a musician’s ear, and the deft pen of a poet.

Lily Iona MacKenzie Books
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A Novelist’s Commitment

correcting-1870721_1920I’m making what I hope will be my last proofreading of the manuscript for Curva Peligrosa. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve made this journey through the novel, trying to track down any typos, spelling, or punctuation errors. And each time, I seem to find a few, making me wonder how I miss them to begin with. My publisher’s editor also has read the text closely, plucking out any weeds she found. But it’s almost impossible to find them all.

At times, I wonder why my publisher and I are so intent on releasing a product that is as close to error free as possible. What would it matter if a word here and there was misspelled or a punctuation mark was misplaced?

When I was teaching undergraduates, and trying to instill in them a reverence for correctness in their essays, I would point out how such mistakes undermined their credibility, especially if they were glaring. A reader would be reluctant to read on if the text was riddled with such oversights. Therefore, the paper’s content has less impact if a reader is struggling to find his/her way through the forest of error-filled text. It’s also one reason why self-published authors have trouble finding readers, especially sophisticated ones that know the difference between a comma splice and a run-on sentence.

What I’ve learned from this experience is how deeply committed a writer must be to his/her text, to seeing it through all of these stages until it’s finally ready to burst forth into the world. It’s not unlike the commitment required for any satisfying relationship that can be threatened by so many factors. Illness, job loss, family problems, and more, can intervene and threaten the integrity of the connection.

That’s why paying close attention to the nuts and bolts, to whatever holds together a text or a bond between people, is necessary in order to preserve it. And that’s why a writer will not succeed as a published novelist if s/he can’t make such a commitment. It’s an essential part of the territory!

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