Cynthia Greenwood has worked as a professional interpreter of Shakespeare for newspaper readers, students, and theatregoers since 1988. She is the author of the award-winning "Deciphering Shakespeare's Plays: A Practical Guide to the Twenty Best-Known and Enduring Works" (2018) and "The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Shakespeare’s Plays" (2008), having taught Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets in her English literature courses at the college level for ten years. As an independent scholar, she presents papers on Shakespeare’s mature comedies at meetings focused on Renaissance culture and history. Her essay on "Measure for Measure's" Bawdy Court Ethos was included in the 2017 Cambridge Scholars Press anthology, "Reflections on Medieval and Renaissance Thought."
As a performing arts journalist and critic, she has filed arts reports, literary features, and reviews for The New York Times, Playbill, Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, San Antonio Express-News, Fort Worth Star Telegram, Houston Press, PlayShakespeare.com, and many others. She served as the Houston Press classical arts reviewer from 1998-2002. She holds a Master of Arts in English from the University of Texas at San Antonio, and she recently earned a second master’s degree in British literature, from The University of Houston, with a major focus on English Renaissance drama.