‘I See Dead People’ with ALX Author Mackenzie Nichols

When local author Mackenzie Nichols reached out to share her new book, I See Dead People: The Making of The Sixth Sense, I was intrigued. This is one of those movies that stays with you…forever. I also wanted to hear how Mackenzie, a 30-year-old Alexandria native found this project and what it took to get it done. Plus, at Stylebook we love sharing the stories of female entrepreneurs and those pursuing their passion and side hustles. Through each other, we learn. Here’s what Mackenzie had to say.

Mackenzie attended St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes, and Episcopal High School, the boarding school on Quaker Lane. She’s an alumna of Northeastern in Boston, where she pursued music journalism. “I’ve been writing since I was a little girl. While at Northeastern, I wrote for their music magazine.” Northeastern, known for their co-op program, alternates semesters of academic study with semesters of full-time work so that students are really able to zone in one what they want to do in their careers. 

“My first co-op was working for MSNBC at Thirty Rock and helping the booking department, getting all the guests into makeup and on-set. My second co-op was with Donna Morgan Bridal learning e-commerce. I also studied abroad in Spain and that’s when I published my first article in the Boston Globe. My profile on a bullfighter was my foray into published journalism at 22.”

She also has a love for gardens and floral, it’s in her blood. “My grandmother is a huge gardener.” Mackenzie worked at a beautiful flower shop in Back Bay, and was a freelance writer for the Society of American Florists, writing for their Floral Management Magazine, merging her two loves. She also interned for River Farm. 

In a former full-time staff writer role for Variety, her daily grind included writing entertainment stories, attending red carpet premieres, and writing a series that celebrated the anniversary of movies. She was really good at getting the story behind the story of iconic movies. She rattled off a list: “Wedding Crashers, Avatar, Jennifer’s Body, Gladiator, Coyote Ugly, The Little Mermaid and The Sixth Sense. “I would start with IMDb and send emails to the director, the writer, the cast and crew and interview them on their experiences in making that movie in particular.” 

While living and working in New York, she covered the Harvey Weinstein trial with Elizabeth Wagmeister for CNN, and called it, “a totally surreal experience, waking up at three or four in the morning to wait in line at the courthouse to gain entry” to the media circus. She says after Weinstein was found guilty, the pandemic happened, and she came back home to Alexandria to be with her family.

She freelanced for Better Homes and Gardens during the pandemic, because, “people weren’t really hiring.” She woke up one morning to a LinkedIn notification from the Lee Sobel  literary agency. They had seen her work with Variety and wanted to see if she was interested in a book project. She thought it might be a scam.

After she verified that the Lee Sobel literary agency was legit, together they decided which iconic movie to feature (Gladiator and Jennifer’s Body had also been discussed), and she wrote a book proposal. She was sent a few sample ones, and easily wrote it up within a few days. Her literary agent then shopped it to all the publishing houses. A few months later, the book proposal recounting the making of The Sixth Sense was picked up by Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group. 

Once accepted, Mackenzie says she spent most of 2022 conducting research on the making of The Sixth Sense. “I didn’t have the recordings of my interviews from Variety (including one with Haley Joel Osment)…and it’s hard to get people to talk.” She used what she had from her original piece, and because it was such a pivotal movie, she was able to access many interviews. These included features with M. Night Shyamalan, Bruce Willis, Mischa Barton and Joe Roth. Other sources included YouTube documentaries, and clippings from newspapers and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

“I never even thought about writing a book,” she shared. I See Dead People: The Making of Sixth Sense was released in November 2023.

At 30, Mackenzie says, “I have a whole community of people here that I didn’t have living in other places.” Her Alexandria faves include the bookstore Sacred Circle, Momo Sushi and walking around the Torpedo Factory, looking at artists’ work. 

What’s next for Mackenzie? While working full-time as a writer for Merrifield Garden Center doing blogging and editing, she also has “600 pages of poetry I want to publish.” Plus a screenplay she wrote in three days, based on a true story. We look forward to seeing it come to fruition!