CYNTHIA HAYES has been reading, writing and telling stories for most of her life. As a journalist and PR executive early in her career, she learned the basics of interviewing, synthesizing information, finding the headlines, and constructing a compelling chronicle. After a brief interruption to earn an MBA from Harvard Business School, Cynthia spent twenty-five years in media, working in-house at Time, Inc. and McGraw Hill, and then as a management consultantfor Simon & Schuster, Disney/ABC Television, MTV Networks, and Sesame Workshop, among other media companies, slowly diversifying into financial services, healthcare, and related industries. As a consultant, success depended on her ability to integrate competing ideas, diverse opinions and complex information into a cohesive narrative and set of recommendations. Invited in-house by one of her clients, she then spent three years as Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Montefiore Medical Center in New York, telling stories of health and recovery.

But she had other stories to tell as well. While focused on writing PowerPoint decks and reports for her clients, she continued to make time to write fiction, attending numerous writing workshops, and starting Skating Home, a quiet novel about self-acceptance, letting go and embracing love that takes place in New York’s Hudson Valley.

She left the business world to devote herself full-time to fiction — but a cancer diagnosis delayed her plans. In light of her own experience with cancer and the knowledge she had developed while at Montefiore, she felt compelled to research and write The Big Ordeal: Understanding and Managing the Psychological Turmoil of Cancer, published in 2021 by River Grove Press. With The Big Ordeal as a platform, she devoted herself to supporting cancer patients and their care partners through a website, blog and social media, as well as volunteering for cancer support programs, writing in cancer-related magazines and speaking to cancer-focused audiences around the world. 

Meanwhile, the itch to write fiction remained. She returned to writing Skating Home, which will be published in August 2027 by She Writes Press, distributed by Simon & Schuster. And she is busy at work on her second novel.

A long-term resident of Manhattan, she has been lucky enough to spend time on weekends and vacations in New York’s Hudson Valley. Like the protagonist of Skating Home, she was drawn to the lakes, the sky, the sunlight, the fog, the trees and the gardens of the Hudson Valley. When not at her desk writing, she can be found walking around, swimming in, kayaking or skating on, or otherwise enjoying the lakes there. She also loves a good game of tennis, a travel adventure, spending time with family, or just relaxing with her husband and dog.