Mary Mackey
Author Interview - Mary Mackey
Author of "In This Burning World: Poems of Love and Apocalypse"
"In This Burning World: Poems of Love and Apocalypse" offers readers 64 new, beautifully-written, profound poems by Mary Mackey, winner of the 2019 Eric Hoffer Award for Best Book in the United States Published by a Small Press. In this stunning collection, Mackey unflinchingly imagines the future we will face as the Earth' s climate changes, while at the same time offering readers inspiring poems that describe how mutual aid and love can preserve hope and joy in even the most difficult of times.
Author Interview - Mary Mackey
Author I draw inspiration from:
William Blake "Songs of Innocence and Experience"
Author Interview - Mary Mackey | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book:
On a warm summer night on a screened in porch while listening to the crickets
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with:
I'd like to be stuck in an elevator with Marrah (whose name means "seagull"), the main character in my historical novel "The Year The Horses Came." When I create characters, they begin to seem real to me. I've always wanted to travel with Marrah across Europe as it was 6000 years ago; see the great, endless, uncut forests of France and Germany; the temples and cities of Italy and Romania; breathe air so fresh you can taste it. While we were stuck in the elevator, I'd ask Marrah about all these things and then ask her to recite some of the poems of her people, which have been lost because writing didn't exist 60 centuries ago. But first, I'd probably have to explain to her what an elevator is.
Author Interview - Mary Mackey | Book Character I’d Like to be Stuck in an Elevator With
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author:
When I was in the fourth grade, I wrote a poem for Abraham Lincoln’s birthday that got five gold stars from my teacher. I also wrote a Christmas play where I turned all my classmates into a giant Christmas tree which recited a long poem that I had made up about snow, candles, and reindeer.
I’ve been writing poems, short stories, novels, and screenplays ever since. In fact, I actually started making up poems and stories before I could read or write. They came (and still come) into my head effortlessly: amused me when I was bored, kept me company when I was sick, made me feel happy when I was sad. I would look at something--an ant perhaps--and imagine how something so much smaller I was might see my front yard--how the grass must look like a forest, the pebbles like hills, the edge of the cement sidewalk like a long sheer cliff. Then I'd name the ant and tell myself the story of its life, or make up a poem about it that rhymed. Sometimes, I even tried to put the poem to the tune of a song like "Frère Jacques.”
I never thought about "becoming an author." I am, and always have been a storyteller/poet/ novelist/screenwriter for the sheer fun of it. At fourteen, I even decided that, when I grew up, I would get a day job as a college professor so I would always be able to write anything I wanted to write without needing to worry about writing for enough money to support myself.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook:
I like all of those options, but I won't read poetry in any formats except paperback or hardback, because the line breaks are often changed in ebooks throwing poems into chaos.
Novels and nonfiction are a different matter. Hardback books age well without deteriorating and are best for books that have illustrations. Paperback books are lightweight, less expensive, and easy to carry around. I read a lot of e-books because they are even easier to transport than paperbacks. For example, I used to travel to Brazil with a suitcase full of paperbacks. Now I just take my Kindle, which works well--even in the high humidity of the Amazon rainforest if you have a source of electricity to recharge it.
Audiobooks give you the best of both worlds. I enjoy hearing poets read their own work; and when I'm driving long distances on freeways, I don't want to try to read a hardback, paperback, or ebook even if I'm only going 50 mph in the slow lane.
The last book I read:
"The Eagle in the Snow" by Wallace Breem. This hands down is my favorite historical novel. I just reread it for perhaps the 6th time. It's about the last years of the Roman Empire, beginning at Hadrian's wall in Britain in 353 A.D. and ending in 406 A.D. shortly after the Danube freezes allowing the Quadi, Asdig, and Siling Vandals to cross the river and overrun Gaul. I like the tight plot, the well developed characters, the brilliant writing and--above all--the accuracy of the historical detail.
Author Interview - Mary Mackey | The Last Book I Read
Pen & paper or computer:
I write all my poems in a notebook using pen and ink and then transfer them to my laptop for revision. I do this because I feel that having to deal with a computer in any way comes between me and my sources of inspiration. I also dictate rough drafts of poems into my phone when I'm taking a walk, and then email them to myself to be revised on my laptop. I’ve found that craft is as important as inspiration, so I usually put my poems through ten to twelve drafts before I declare them finished.
Book character I think I’d be best friends with:
I'd like to hang out with Winnie the Pooh in the Hundred Acre Woods. After all, like me Pooh is a poet. As Pooh famously said: "The more it snows (Tiddely pom)/The more it goes (Tiddely pom)/The more it goes (Tiddely pom)/On snowing." ( from "The House at Pooh Corner" by A.A. Milne).
Maybe Pooh and I could cheer up Eyeore, find a pot of honey for the three of us to share, and write some poems together.
Author Interview - Mary Mackey | Book Character I’d be Best Friends With
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a:
If I weren't an author, I'd be an epidemiologist. It's a dangerous but useful profession that does real good in the real world. I've long been fascinated by the history of the search for the cause and cure for malaria and other diseases. Dr. Jonas Salk, who developed a vaccine for polio, is one of my heroes. When I was five, my best friend ended up in an iron lung. Salk's discovery saved countless people, many of them children, from this terrible disease
Favorite decade in fashion history:
Any era when women didn't have to wear corsets, hoop skirts, powdered wigs, girdles, or high heels.
Place I’d most like to travel:
I'd like to go to Antarctica. I've always wanted to see penguins in the wild.
My signature drink:
My signature drink is water: a mug of hot water on cold days; a glass of cold water with a couple of ice cubes in it on hot days.
Favorite artist:
I like Led Zeppelin--particularly Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. Running neck-and-neck with them is Mozart, followed by Bach (who is closing in). My favorite artist is Frank LaPena (Tauhindauli) who was a CSUS colleague of mine. One of his spirit paintings hangs in my living room.
Number one on my bucket list:
These are difficult times’ for many people, so I’m looking forward to doing more to help those in need. For example, I have decided to donate all the royalties from "In This Burning World" to Loaves and Fishes, a charity that has been helping the homeless since 1983.
As for personally looking forward to doing or trying something: when I was young, I decided I would live my life so I would regret what I'd done, not what I didn't do. As a result, I've been to many strange places and done many interesting things including living in a remote biological field station in the jungle. I've been in danger--some of it extreme: volcanic eruption, armed civil unrest, etc.--and survived, partly by luck and partly by getting out as soon as things looked like they were going to go bad. At present, I'm content. It might be fun to learn another language or dance with snakes; but right now I look forward to the beauty of each day, to the long light of summer, to the ripple of light on water, to friends, and to being thankful for what I've had and have. I'm happy with my life. I’ve done almost everything I wanted to do, and I have very few regrets.
Find more from the author:
Website: https://marymackey.com
Bluesky:: @marymackeyauthor.bsky.social
X (formerlyTwitter): @MMackeyAuthor
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marymackeywriter
About Mary Mackey:
Mary Mackey
Mary Mackey became a poet by running high fevers, tramping through tropical jungles, dodging machine gun fire, being caught in volcanic eruptions, swarmed by army ants, stalked by vampire bats, threatened by poisonous snakes, and reading, She is the author of nine collections poetry including "Sugar Zone," winner of the 2012 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence and Finalist for the Northern California Book Reviewers Award; and "The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams: New and Selected Poems 1974 to 2018," winner of the 2019 Eric Hoffer Award for Best Book Published by a Small Press. Her novel "The Village of Bones" won a Women’s Spiritual Book Award. In 2022 Marsh Hawk Press published "Creativity: Where Poems Begin" a memoir that mixes poetry with a series of short prose pieces which explore how ideas and bursts of insight come, not just to writers, but to all of us. Her most recent book is "In This Burning World: Poems of Love and Apocalypse," a collection of poems that deal with climate change and the need to preserve joy and compassion in the face of catastrophe.
Mary is also the author of 14 novels, including "A Grand Passion," which made The New York Times bestseller list; and "The Village of Bones," "The Year The Horses Came," "The Horses at the Gate," and "The Fires of Spring," four novels set in the Goddess worshiping/Earth-centered cultures of neolithic Europe 6000 years ago, A screenwriter as well as a novelist and poet, she has sold feature-length screenplays to Warner Brothers as well as to independent film companies. Her co-written screenplay "Time Piece" won First Prize in the 2022 City of Angels Women’s Film Festival.
In April 2026, Women’s Spirituality Studies Press will publish a collection of the goddess poems she has written from 1972 to 2025 entitled "The Goddess of Burning Hair."
