McKenzie Kwak

writer/poet from upstate ny 💜 binghamton university '23 💜 words in @eunoiareview

[McKenzie Kwak @mck_msk]

the year is 2045. I still write using the same character name generator I have been using since sixth grade. I click the generate button 99 consecutive times in search of the perfect name until the name generated is my own. I die instantly.

[McKenzie Kwak @mck_msk]

what do i do when I have a dozen poems that are like 80% done and I can't find the way to finish any of them but I know they all have potential @richardsiken

[McKenzie Kwak @mck_msk]

my poem is out!! thank you @EunoiaReview

[Eunoia Review @EunoiaReview]

spring cleaning https://t.co/bOoFUeDTqF

[Kirsti MacKenzie @KeersteeMack]

“All of this — these words you absently scratch with a pen that’s running out of ink — is an inadequate distraction from the fact that you miss someone who you can’t tell that you miss.”

@texgresham with an absolute heartbreaker for @trampset https://t.co/kKw7W1T17N

[Samuel A. Betiku @sa_betiku]

An old piece @trampset

[Suze Kay @suz_chef]

@calhounpoems @And_OtherPoems @BRAWL_Lit @trampset https://t.co/81RBH5Nfq4 here’s Manifesting, which grew from missing my rural hometown (and also, I think, reckoning with some of its bewilderment).

[Kirsti MacKenzie @KeersteeMack]

oh hi night crowd - got a 💀 up over at @havehadhavehad about sticking googly eyes on every goddamn thing

[McKenzie Kwak @mck_msk]

it's easy to say the same cliches about being a writer, and it's easy to call yourself a writer, but here we all are nonetheless and the work that comes out of these indie lit mags is real, and energizing. the online defense mechanism of ironic detachment doesn't work here

[McKenzie Kwak @mck_msk]

I've been creatively parched for so long it feels, been trying to read read read for inspiration and that combined with a move has finally caught up to me I think.

[McKenzie Kwak @mck_msk]

I never really know what to say on here. talking about writing on front-facing social media always feels a bit disingenuous but I'm mostly just not used to articulating these things or putting my name behind them.

[McKenzie Kwak @mck_msk]

dusting off the taco bell-themed draft that's been in my notes app for like 6 months...........

[Taco Bell Quarterly @TBQuarterly]

Hey we open 420, we pay 150, check out the call https://t.co/PgeA6ePBqv

[Taco Bell Quarterly @TBQuarterly]

I got a freaking book deal and became a man since the last time this thing was open two years ago. Anything can happen. There is no literary world. Submit something! 4/20. Easter. Rise from the death of creative writing and live más.

[McKenzie Kwak @mck_msk]

I love writing poetry, you ruminate on something for weeks and then change an s to a d and put it back in the fridge to marinate indefinitely

[HAD @havehadhavehad]

every piece of today's @MCSchmidt12 story is great but, too, it makes 2, 3, 4 different turns of surprise & delight; the whole accumulates into such a great story!

"I don’t know the cause of her suffering; if I did, I wouldn’t have a story to tell you."

https://t.co/BGzC4lXnqb

[Dishsoap Quarterly @dishsoapquart]

No better way to end 2024 than by reading an incredible micro. Here's our final piece of the year: "They fired up the laser" by @timothycgoodwin

Read it on our website: https://t.co/QvvlfA5aGx

[Orion's Belt magazine @OrionsBeltMag]

Every story is something you have to learn how to write as you go along, whether it's 1000 words or 100,000 words. Every story is its own little world: therein lies the challenge and the opportunity.

[Dr. Maya C. Popa @MayaCPopa]

Ursula Le Guin:

[McKenzie Kwak @mck_msk]

5

[McKenzie Kwak @mck_msk]

in spite of complicated feelings about goodreads, I do like privately tracking my books with it. my 2025 goal is 25 books. my last goal was 15 but I read 36 (lots of them were chapbooks or audiobooks read during work) and I want to read more challenging stuff in 202