Getting "Lit" with Mackenzie

  My writing is all about the process, and it’s different every single time I write. Sometimes, when I’m writing, it comes so naturally to me. I paint words on the page like a jazz musician playing the saxophone on the street—it just flows and works. Sometimes, when I’m writing, I am completely lost. I’m a kid in a maze of mirrors—thinking I know where the path ends, but end up bumping into myself again and again and again.   The thing is, writing and its processes doesn’t have to be linear. Vicki Spandel outlines an idea in her piece, “The Right to Write Badly,” which says that writers have, “The right to be heard, to find a personal voice, to be assessed thoughtfully and compassionately, to make writing process not an external structure but a part of their thinking” (ix). Writers have the power to take their processes and styles and apply or transfer them to multiple variations of their lives. The idea that forming thoughts and finding voice within writing using a critical l...

 Hi, there!   My name is Mackenzie, and I am currently a junior in the English Education program at UWM!    I love everything about writing, language, and storytelling. I find that the written word and storytelling are behind everything we know about anything, so I look forward to all forms of collaboration within that realm. I am especially interested in memoirs right now, reading about others’ experiences is fascinating to me—it reminds me that we are all part of humanity!    I currently work within a preschool program , working with the three-, four-, and five-year-olds, but I have experience working with secondary students in various educational settings. I have a large background in the performing arts, both as a performer (I am actually a classically trained singer, which not many people know) and as an instructor (I was a theater teacher for 3K-8th grade for almost 4 years)—my love for literature came from it! The ability to present ideas out o...