52 Weeks of Cookies with Maggie McCreath

Maggie McCreath, author of 52 Weeks of Cookies, joins host Carla Marie Manly, PhD, to discuss her family's journey, her book, and how baking and sending cookies helped her express her love and support while her son was deployed.

 

About Maggie McCreath:

Maggie McCreath is a single mom with two grown kids. She received a degree in Computer Science from George Mason University, and has worked in the field for over thirty years. Her life has always revolved around her family. Her kids began as her pride and joy, and have grown into her best friends and confidants.

Her daughter Haley is the oldest. She has a degree in Journalism from Virginia Commonwealth University; however, after working for a national news organization here in Washington, DC, for four years, she determined that way of life was not for her. She currently works for a pub managing the bar and producing local radio commercials in mid-western Virginia.

Her son, Buddy, enlisted in the Army during his senior year of High School and became Airborne directly after boot camp. He has served with the Airborne Corps up until January 2015 when he began Warrant Officer Candidate School. After successfully completing the school work, he will fly helicopters.

Though Maggie's interest in the military strengthened with her son's enlistment, her fondness for the military and those who serve began years earlier. Her father served during World War II, and she has spent a large portion of her adult life in direct support of the military. This includes the fifteen years she worked for the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, with an additional five years working for the Pentagon at an off-site facility. On September 11, 2001, though Maggie was not at the Pentagon, she was at an off-site location working in direct support of its mission. The events of 9/11 not only catapulted her to the position she holds now, but have undoubtedly shaped her family's lives as well.

About 52 Weeks of Cookies :

Single mother Maggie McCreath couldn’t decide which was worse: the fact that her only son (not yet twenty-one) was off to war in Iraq for the second time or the fact that they had only five days to prepare. Even more frightening, she knew that he would be part of the Surge and, as a paratrooper in the 82nd Division of the Army, the tip of the Spear. What she did not know—what she couldn’t even bear to consider—was how this deployment would end, both for her son and for his brothers in arms, whom she had come to know and love as her own. So she turned to the one pastime that had always brought her solace: baking.

Filled with delicious, original cookie recipes, 52 Weeks of Cookies recounts a mom’s unique methods of coping during her son’s deployment. With plenty of sugar cookies but no sugarcoating, 52 Weeks of Cookies is an honest, uplifting story of family love during a crisis, with all the fear, grief, laughter, gratitude, and joy that come with it.