Author: Cynthia MacGregor

Q: How long have you been writing? A: Since the early ’80s.

Bookstores are the traditional venue for authors to promote their works. You approach your local Barnes & Noble, or indie bookstore, and ask if they’d be interested in hosting a reading, or a speech, and a signing. But that presumes the bookstore is carrying your book.

When I remember going “marketing” (as my mother called food-shopping) with my mother as a small child, I remember that we always went in the car. But if it wasn’t groceries we were after on our round of errands, we might set out on foot—I in my stroller in the earlier years, or on my...

In my long-ago childhood, comic books were frowned on by most parents and teachers. They weren’t “real” books. They were more pictures than words. The language level in them wasn’t challenging. Kids loved them, but adults? Not so much.

Aren’t books wonderful? They’re chock-full of entertainment, information, and assistance. Whether you choose to read fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or some of each of these, you can get a lot of pleasure out of books. And you get it all with NO COMMERCIALS! Nobody’s stopping at a crucial point in the storyline or informative explanation to...

There are three recurring dreams I have with some frequency. One is an unhappy dream. The other two always have me waking up feeling good. The unhappy dream involves moving from one house or apartment to another, not because I want to but because I am forced by some circumstance—and often it involves moving out...

Although I’ve had over 100 books published, I was a “late bloomer.” I didn’t have my first book published until 1993, well into my writing-and-editing career. The contract for that book, a book of children’s activities, written for parents, included the provision for a more-than-decent advance (a rarity in 2016 but more easily attained in...

July is almost over, and here in Palm Beach County, although the season is still scorching—and will remain so for some time yet—it’s almost fall for the school system. The local schools open on August 16th. It means once again yielding to street-crossing students up at the corner when I’m driving, once again being halted...

It happens to all of us. It may be that our bookshelves are too crammed and there’s nowhere to put our latest acquisitions. It may be that we’re downsizing, moving to smaller quarters, and we have to divest ourselves of some of our possessions—including books. It may be that we have a new spouse or...

My friend Bess recently wrote a piece about hoarding, in which she advocated ruthless pruning of all one’s possessions…including books. She asked rhetorically if a person is really going to re-read all the books he or she has saved and suggested that, even if you want to revisit a book, you can always borrow it...