Author bio

Kerry MacGregor is a Canadian writer and journalist who recently traded her fast-paced job in an Ottawa newsroom for a life of fiction along the French Riviera. At least, that's how she heard the story when she decided to drop everything this summer and pursue a romance with a tall, French professor living in Nice.

Kerry had been on the verge of buying a cookie-cutter house in the suburbs where she grew up when she met the Professor on a 2009 hike in West Quebec. He asked her, “Will you come to France?” and after nine days of dating, Kerry decided, “Hell, yes.”

Since then, she's been documenting their romance and her attempt to live the life she's always dreamed – first, in her journal, and then in a column that appeared in the Toronto Star in the fall and winter of 2009. The column, called French Kiss, followed Kerry from the beginning of her whirlwind romance, through her culture shock and the ups and downs of a fledgling romance that could soon become more serious.

Since beginning the column, Kerry has received emails from dozens of women (and a few men) from all over the world who have, at some point, decided to ditch their lives and take similar risks for love. Some of the stories are heartbreaking, others heartwarming, and some are just beginning. Kerry has maintained contact with her readers and earned the interest of new ones through her blog Tales from a lovely awkward romance: the year I leaped at www.kerrymacgregor.com and on Twitter, where she writes about her ongoing – and at times, awkward – adjustment into the Professor's life.

While in France, Kerry has been writing a book about her leap for romance, but has also worked as a reporter with Antibes Yacht Show Television and RivieraLife.tv. In Canada, she has written for the Toronto Star, the Ottawa Citizen, and the Globe and Mail, worked as an editor and coordinating editor with CanWest Books, as a minister's speechwriter and as a reporter and associate producer at CBC Ottawa (the newsroom she recently abandoned). She's produced arts and culture segments for CBC national radio shows Q, with Jian Ghomeshi, and Studio Sparks, and news and culture segments for Ottawa's All In A Day, Ottawa Morning, World Report and CBCTV's News at Six.

Kerry studied Anthropology at the University of Toronto and Film Production at Concordia University in Montreal. Her interest in Anthropology is in observing the different ways people seek out happiness in their lives, as informed by their cultural values and beliefs. In contrast, most of her films are about people who are, in different ways, prevented from finding that happiness.

Lovely Awkward: A Year of Wine and Romance and Life Among the French is the working title for Kerry's book about France, romance and risk.