Mackenzie Carignan, Ph.D.
the story
Mackenzie is founder of Creative Vision Lab, a creativity coaching practice that helps people use creativity to overcome challenges and get unstuck. She is co-editor-in-chief of Switchbacks Books, a feminist press that strives to elevate the voices of exciting new female, non-binary, and trans women's voices. She serves on the Broomfield Arts, History an Culture Council where she strives to bring art into everyday experiences in her community.
Her passion for literary community has manifested through her decades-long involvement in editing and publishing literary magazines as well as her involvement in the small press world. She was a co-founder and collaborator in Black Radish Books, a small press that focused on innovative and experimental voices in poetry.
Her own poetry explores themes of motherhood, grief, anxiety, trauma, and the space between love and catastrophe. Others have described her work as having a "feeling like nothing is ever safe," She consistently pushes the boundaries of traditional image and narrative structures to make space for the fractured female body/ embodiment and experience. She has been writing poetry for over 35 years, and she has been publishing her work in various venues since 1992. A few of her publications are listed here.
