About ME

Mackenzie Joy is a lot of things. A nerd and a doodler. A lifelong bookworm and volleyball-playing athlete. A passionate teacher and a wedding-dance-floor rock star. She loves playing with words, solving puzzles, and reading stories aloud at bedtime.

Mackenzie grew up in northern California. She spent her time drawing, reading books, playing sports, and having outdoor adventures with her family. She thinks librarians and teachers are some of the most wonderful humans in the world.

She received her MBA in 2014, and has worked in sustainability, analytics and data storytelling, user experience research, strategy, and getting people early-morning coffees as a barista. 

As an artist, she loves to scribble and paint on non-traditional canvases like shoes, grandfather clocks, and matryoshka. As a writer, she enjoys feeling the rhythm of sentences and finding the perfect sounds and words. As a storyteller, she wants to share stories that are quirky, hopeful, and make you think.

She truly believes listening, learning, and helping people be their best selves can make the world a better place.

Her heroes are Winnie the Pooh, Bill Nye the Science Guy, Gandalf the Grey, and her mema, Joy. 

She now lives on a little hill near Berkeley, California. And she loves to laugh and types her smiley faces backwards (: