Author: Cynthia MacGregor

I love words. This should come as no surprise, given that I’m a writer. Ever since the group’s inception, I’ve been a member of PUNY (Punsters United Nearly Yearly), an online wordplay group. I love to play with words as much as I love to write and edit them. (And yes, I’m one of those...

If you’re at all familiar with my books, you may be aware that besides two novels, a bunch of nonfiction, and quite a few books for kids, I also have had a large handful of cookbooks published—all but two of them published by Roundtable. (Of those two, one was pubbed as an e-book by a...

“Everyone has a book inside them”—or so goes a widely held belief. But is it true?

I count myself very lucky—or blessed. Well, there are actually a number of reasons that I feel fortunate in life, but the one I have in mind at the moment is professional. Many book-writers have to toil at dayjobs far removed from what they really want to be doing—writing books—and get to write only on...

Today’s librarians talk in normal voices. They don’t whisper or murmur, and the word “Shush!” is not in their vocabularies. I always feel the need to look around and make sure I haven’t accidentally wandered into the Post Office next door. It’s not silenced enough to be a library!

Do you tuck your small child in at night with a bedtime story? Lullabies are great, and so is a loving snuggle, but neither takes the place of reading. Why reading?

The subject this week isn’t books, libraries, or adventures in public book-readings. It’s cooking. And it asks the question: What do you do with Cornish game hens when the recipe you wanted to use involves a shrimp stuffing, and your S.O. is currently suffering from a gout attack? (Shrimp is a no-no when gout is...

Graduation day is coming…and these days, not only high schools and colleges but also middle schools, elementary schools, and yes, even pre-schools hold graduations. The other day, when I was talking to someone in administration at a pre-school, she said, “This is a busy time of year for us. We’re getting ready for graduation and...

Some people who prefer fiction say they like it because it’s “escapist” and, with a good novel, they can lose themselves in the story.

I have written in this space before about some of the things kids have said to me at book-readings that amazed me—notably their aspirations for their adult futures. Yesterday I was exposed to another rib-tickling round of “When I grow up.”