Author: Cynthia MacGregor

They were the bane of teachers’ existence, and many parents frowned on them too. I’m talking about comic books, “back in the day”—specifically, back in my childhood. The genre known as “manga” didn’t exist then. There were two types of comic books only: funny and adventure. There was Archie, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Little Lulu,...

You have no authorial ambitions, no desire to write books, articles, or anything remotely “literary.” You’re not interested in a career in PR, either. So you probably think you have no need to be a good writer. Right? Wrong!

They say that “Everyone has a story in them.” I don’t know that I necessarily believe that EVERYONE does, but surely MANY people do. For some, it’s a novel that they have an idea for. For others, it’s their memoirs. Still others have a nonfiction idea—a how-to, an inspirational or motivational message, or the biography...

I’m not putting the knock on novels. I’ve written a few myself. But why do so many people—authors and readers alike—treat nonfiction and its writers like the ugly stepsister? For too many readers, nonfiction is what you buy when you need information on a particular topic. Novels are what you buy when you want to...

As has been pointed out in song some time ago, “The times, they are a-changing.” Before the feminist movement, it was automatic for someone to write “he” when referring to a person of non-specific gender. That person might as easily be a woman (or girl), but as long as it wasn’t a definite reference to...

I was talking to a fellow writer recently. We were debating the merits of a novel he proposed to write—a prequel to one he’d already written. He thought to base the female protagonist on one or the other, or a combination of both, of two women he had known well in the past. He knew...

Time was when companies that helped authors publish their own books were known as “vanity presses” or “vanity publishers,” and when having a book published by one of these companies didn’t count as “real” publishing. Vanity presses were almost entirely the bastion of inferior authors, who couldn’t get a “real” (that is, legitimate, mainstream, conventional)...

One of the cardinal rules pounded into writers, especially new writers, is “Write about what you know.” I call bullshit on that.

On the heels of my interview with Troy Fohrman two weeks ago, I had the novel idea to interview myself this week! Here it goes. Q: You write these blogposts every week and have had a number of books published by Roundtable, but who are you? A: I’m a multi-published full-time freelance writer/editor, with over...

In junior high school, I was one of Miss Kellogg’s “Library Helpers,” and it was definitely work that I loved. We Library Helpers checked books in and out, shelved books, and occasionally worked with the card catalog. (Are you old enough to remember card catalogs?) We also did such tasks as putting protective library covers...