About this episode

This episode features a conversation with Lily MacKenzie about the intersection of memoir writing and fiction, exploring creative techniques and the significance of age in storytelling.

Memoir writing blurs the line between truth and imagination in this revealing conversation with Lily MacKenzie. We explore how creative writing techniques shape both fiction narrative and personal stories, as Lily explains her unique approach: "you lie in the service of the truth." The prolific author, with works published in over 170 venues, teaches writing dialogue, narrative structure, and storytelling techniques at the University of San Francisco's Fromm Institute for older adults. Discover why age matters, and doesn't matter, in the writing community, and what connects memoir to traditional storytelling. Hear an excerpt from Freefall: A Divine Comedy where Tilly, an installation artist approaching 60, confronts her anxieties about aging and finances in San Francisco. What You’ll Learn in This Episode: How memoir writing employs storytelling techniques identical to fiction, including writing dialogue that reconstructs past conversations through imagination in writing and memory recreation. Why traditional narrative structure rules can be broken in favor of fragmented, non-chronological approaches that create compelling conversations between different life stages. The…

People in this episode

Host: Reenita Hora

Guest: Lily MacKenzie

Topics covered

• memoir writing
• creative writing techniques
• fiction narrative
• storytelling
• aging
• narrative structure

Keywords

• memoir
• fiction
• storytelling techniques
• narrative structure
• aging
• creative writing

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of San Francisco

Books & works: Freefall: A Divine Comedy

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