Lily Iona MacKenzie

I recall returning home a while back after spending time at a recently built rental home on the Oxnard, California, beach. It had a wonderful view overlooking the harbor and ocean. You might think I would miss the incredible views and location, as well as the house, brimming with technological toys. But I didn’t. It was a relief to return to our simple Richmond abode, built in the 1940s. Continue…

As a young woman in the 50s growing up in Canada, I was intrigued by hockey and football. Baseball didn’t exist for me then. It hadn’t entered Canadian consciousness, and it would take some years before it did. But I didn’t feel deprived. Hockey and football had much to offer at that time, including handsome, vigorous guys. Continue reading Is there a connection between baseball and writing?

Being part of an on-line writing group for several years provided me with many benefits. But the positives also produced a few negatives. The Positives: Continue reading Writing groups? Yes, there are pros and cons to them!

I didn’t get to sleep till 1 AM this morning after reading a fascinating article about the assemblage artist Joseph Cornell. I’ve felt that in many ways, he’s my spiritual father. A-I describes his work as intricate “signature boxes, glass-fronted shadow boxes that serve as miniature, poetic theaters. Inside, he meticulously arranged collages and three-dimensional ‘found objects’—such as old…

I’ve just finished rereading Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady and have mixed feelings about the era and the characters. It’s difficult to read about Victorian morés from a 21st Century perspective. Not only do I need lenses that will give me a bi-cultural perspective, but I also feel squashed between a culture clash. Just after I finished with Portrait, I read a review of A. M. Homes’ book May…

In the SF Bay area, we’ve recently had some extremely warm days, totally out of character for us at this time of year in San Francisco and the other nearby coastal regions. Most of us have been delighted to sit out in our yards at night and enjoy this new balmy climate. Continue reading It’s not fair!

I guess there is something comforting about the way today’s youth have become accustomed to their parents/guardians checking on them at all times via smart phones, etc. It may feel like being held in a kind of web (and here I’m not referring to the World Wide Web), a loving network. But it also suggests to me what it’s like to be trapped in a spider’s snare. The idea that none of us can have a…

I’m grieving the loss of dictionaries, thick, massive volumes that I used to get lost in. I would open a page and find hundreds of words, all of them demanding my attention, each a miniature world to explore. But now I’ve become a victim of on-line lexicons because they are handier than putting aside my laptop computer and marching into the other room to unload the Oxford from a bookshelf where…

Foghorns blast through the 7 AM San Francisco overcast. The only woman in the place, I saunter into the longshoreman’s union hall, trying to appear as if I did this every day. A few cigarette-scarred wooden tables offer a place for the men to gather and talk while waiting to be called to work. Billowing clouds of cigarette smoke hang ominously over everyone. Continue reading First woman to work…

Like detectives, writers need to be constantly observant, picking up clues from what people are wearing, how they gesture, the words they speak, the way they interact with others. They study others’ facial expressions and what they might suggest about the person, storing away the data in their memory banks. Or they’ll take notes in a writer’s journal that they’ll refer to later. Detectives also…

Memoir writing blurs the line between truth and imagination in this revealing conversation with Lily Iona MacKenzie. We explore how creative writing techniques shape both fiction narrative and personal stories, as Lily explains her unique approach: “you lie in service of the truth.” View the 20 minute conversation here: https://youtu.be/GsujDPN69ok  

Yesterday, I had to kill time (terrible metaphor) while waiting to hear a friend of mine do a reading of his memoir Blackboard at a Corte Madera bookstore. I didn’t want to drive home to the East Bay and then make another trip to Marin County, so I hung out at Marin County’s Corte Madera Library. With audio and ebooks so popular, I half expected the library to be a ghost town, inhabited by print…

For years I felt guilty about breaking the heirloom toys my stepfather’s mother had preserved, relics of another era. I can still remember the excitement of lifting each object out of the boxes where they had been stored and bringing them to life again: tiny china dishes with hand-painted flowers; a miniature stagecoach carrying riders and pulled by horses; dolls with porcelain faces and hands,…

My Daily Writing Rhythm How to keep the characters moving in my head and on the page Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop (www.elizabethwinthropalsop.com) is the author of over 50 works of fiction for adults and children under the pen name Elizabeth Winthrop.  These include the award-winning fantasy series, The Castle in the Attic and The Battle for the Castle as well as the short story, The Golden Darters,…