Bio for Media 

McKenzie Lynn Tozan is an international writer dividing her time between Croatia and Chicago. She is a published poet and novelist, the Editor-in-Chief of Lit Shark, as well as the Banned Book Review, and a Poetry Reader for Muzzle Magazine. Her poems, essays, and book reviews have been featured in The Rumpus, Green Mountains Review, Whale Road Review, Rogue Agent, POPSUGAR, Motherly, and Encore Magazine. Her short horror story collection, What We Find in the Dark, and her horror novella, Black As Black, are both forthcoming from The Shiver Collective in 2023.

McKenzie’s Backstory 

McKenzie earned her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Western Michigan University, where she taught composition, creative writing, and business writing, and worked as the Layout and Design Editor for New Issues Poetry and Prose, and Assistant Poetry Editor for Third Coast

Prior, she earned her B.A. in English, B.S. in Education, and Certificate in Psychology, while she taught composition and argumentative writing, worked as the Managing Editor for 42 Miles Press, and volunteered as Poetry Editor for Analecta

In early 2015, the final year of her M.F.A., McKenzie began accepting independent social media and book strategy clients, in addition to the editing clients she began accepting in 2010. Offering editing, book cover and interior design, professional branding, book marketing plans, publishing assistance, and social media management, McKenzie helped dozens of clients per year from 2015 to 2022, leading to more successfully-published books and jumpstarting some of today’s top #InstaPoets, “BookTok Made Me Buy It” writers, and New York Times best-selling authors. 

More About McKenzie 

McKenzie lives on the Croatian coast and travels Europe with her husband, Dragan, their three kiddos (Cadence, Grayson, and Landon—the inspiration for the name of Dragan’s tech repair and website design business, GrL’Ca), and their cat, Effie Mae Trinket (yes, inspired by The Hunger Games and “May the odds…”). When she is not writing or traveling, she enjoys creating art, reading, playing piano, and being outside, especially in the fall.

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