Author Lily Iona MacKenzie joins
me today to talk about her new magical realism novel, Curva Peligrosa.
Welcome, Lily. Please share a little bit
about yourself.
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, co-created The Story Shoppe, a weekly radio program for children
that aired on KTIM in Marin County, CA, 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 155 American and Canadian venues. My novel Fling! was
published in 2015. Curva Peligrosa was published in September
2017. Freefall: A Divine Comedy will be released in 2018. My poetry
collection All This was published in 2011. I taught rhetoric at
the University of San Francisco for over 30 years and currently teach
creative writing at USF’s Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning. I also
blog at http://lilyionamackenzie.wordpress.com.
Please tell us about your current
release.
When Curva Peligrosa arrives in
Weed, Alberta, after a twenty-year trek on the Old North Trail from southern
Mexico, she stops its residents in their tracks. With a parrot on each
shoulder, a glittering gold tooth, and a wicked trigger finger, she is unlike
anything they have ever seen before. Curva is ready to settle down, but are the
inhabitants of Weed ready for her? Possessed of an insatiable appetite for life
and love, Curva’s infectious energy galvanizes the townspeople, turning their
staid world upside down with her exotic elixirs and unbridled ways. Toss in an unscrupulous americano developer
and a one-eyed Blackfoot chief, stir them all together in a tornado’s
tempestuous tumult, and the town of Weed will never be the same again.
A lyrical account of one woman’s
journey and the unexpected effects it has on the people around her, Curva Peligrosa pulses with the magic at the heart and soul of life.
What inspired you to write this book?
The origin of our stories can be mysterious, as was
the case with Curva. The narrative first took hold
of me back in 2000. Here is what I wrote in my writer’s journal on 7/16/00,
though I didn’t actually start writing the novel until 2003:
“Was
taken with the image of the tornado that swept into Pine Lake, a resort near
Red Deer, Alberta, yesterday, and has killed several people, flattening
trailers etc. It isn’t the destruction that interests me. It’s devastating and
unimaginable. It’s the image of the tornado, so innocent in itself, flattening
a community, bringing with it so much sorrow. The tornado has a magical,
mythical quality, reminding me of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. And it’s an
image I can imagine using to start a book/story. There’s something in it for
me, the way it gathers up so much in one swoop and then sets everything down in
a new place, reconfigured. This is what interests me, and I don’t know quite
what to do with it, but it has a compelling quality. It’s gripped my
imagination. It’s odd how these things happen. The force they have. Novelists
and writers in general are like tornados themselves in how they rearrange
lives, facts, and places.”
It comes as no surprise that Curva Peligrosa opens with a tornado that
sweeps through the fictional town of Weed, Alberta, and drops a purple outhouse
into its center. Drowsing and dreaming inside that structure is its owner,
Curva Peligrosa.
Adventurous
and amorous, and over six feet tall, she possesses magical powers. She also has
the greenest of thumbs, creating a tropical habitat in an arctic clime, and she
possesses a wicked trigger finger. She
proceeds to turn Weed upside down, like the tornado that opens the novel—upside
down morally, spiritually, culturally, and sexually.
The
narrative took off from there, giving me a wild ride as I tried to keep up with
the irrepressible Curva.
What exciting story are you working on
next?
I have another
novel coming out on July 15, 2018: Freefall:
A Divine Comedy. It features Tillie Bloom, a wacky installation artist, who travels to
Venice for an extended reunion with three former friends, women she hung out
with in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. The four had reconnected a few weeks
earlier during a four-day reunion in Whistler, B.C. A near-death experience
with a grizzly on a mountain linked the women at a deeper level. This new
intimacy prompts them to celebrate the millennium and their approaching 60th
birthdays in Italy, where two thirds of the book take place. During this time,
secrets surface, their stories binding them closer together.
Tillie often gets lost in the maze of Venice streets, but she resurfaces sooner or later, intrigued by the various reflective surfaces and how they participate in the city’s love affair with light. These reflections counter the pull of darker forces, causing the four women to reevaluate themselves and their lives. Tillie, in particular, experiences a new understanding of herself that propels her into a new age, not unlike what she had experienced in the early ‘60s.
A humorous yet serious meditation on the relationship between art and mortality, Freefall: a Divine Comedy taps into the rich underground springs that feed all of our lives, suggesting that death is more complex than we normally believe—darkness and death being the source of life and not just the end. It also celebrates the rich tapestry of the imagination.
Tillie often gets lost in the maze of Venice streets, but she resurfaces sooner or later, intrigued by the various reflective surfaces and how they participate in the city’s love affair with light. These reflections counter the pull of darker forces, causing the four women to reevaluate themselves and their lives. Tillie, in particular, experiences a new understanding of herself that propels her into a new age, not unlike what she had experienced in the early ‘60s.
A humorous yet serious meditation on the relationship between art and mortality, Freefall: a Divine Comedy taps into the rich underground springs that feed all of our lives, suggesting that death is more complex than we normally believe—darkness and death being the source of life and not just the end. It also celebrates the rich tapestry of the imagination.
When did you first consider yourself a
writer?
I don’t think I
had a chance to “consider myself a writer.” It chose me and is as necessary to
me as eating. If I don’t write each day, I become irritable and unpleasant to
live with. Ask my husband!
When I was
thirteen, I started keeping a diary that I wrote in a coded language I invented
so anyone who read it wouldn’t be able to enter my world. I have no idea what
happened to that first attempt to keep a journal, but I’m sure it was my
writing self trying to emerge. That part of me was buried though, along with
the diary, until my mid-twenties when I experienced a deep depression. At that
time, I started keeping a journal again. I also went into therapy, the first
step in recovering my writing self.
The journal
writing was my attempt to understand what was happening. I wrote daily not only
about what I was thinking and feeling, but I also recorded my nightly dreams.
I’ve continued this practice ever since, learning much about myself in the
process. I feel that keeping in close contact with my dreams has fed my writing
and enriched my imagination. At this time, I also started exploring the craft
of writing, entering an undergraduate creative writing program.
Do you write full-time? If so, what's
your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find
time to write?
Over the
years, I’ve had to support myself, both before and after I married my current
husband in 1994. And since only 5% of writers can live off their writing
income, I had to find other work. Luckily, I’ve been able to teach writing and
literature part time at local colleges. At the moment I’m teaching creative
writing to older adults at the Fromm Institute for Lifelong learning at the
University of San Francisco. I’ve also had the privilege of helping my husband
raise his two kids, who were 5 and 10 when we married. From so many demands on
my time, I have learned to fit my writing needs into each day whenever I could,
but I have always made sure that I wrote for at least an hour a day. In a year,
that adds up to a lot of pages, and in addition to hundreds of poems, short
stories, travel pieces, essays, and memoir, many of which I’ve published, I’ve
also completed four+ novels. Of course, since publishing a poetry collection
and two novels, I’ve also had to add book marketing to my list of things to do
each day! But my life isn’t all work. I read voraciously. Working out daily on
my stationary bike and at the gym keeps me trim and gives me energy for all of
the other things I do. I love cooking, socializing with friends, and tending
our garden. I also get great pleasure from dabbling in the visual arts.
What would you say is your interesting
writing quirk?
That I’m
able to find humor in unexpected material.
As a child, what did you want to be when
you grew up?
A ballerina,
another Annie Oakley, and Wonder Woman!
Anything additional you want to share
with the readers?
I love John
Cheevers quote: “I write to make sense of my life.” I feel that’s what I’m
doing when I write.
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