Marc McCutcheon is an American reference-book author whose dictionaries, thesauri, and writing references have sat on more novelists' desks for the past thirty years than almost any other single author's work. He has written more than fifteen reference titles spanning vocabulary, descriptive writing, historical research, and character building, and lives in South Portland, Maine, where he is also a bookstore owner.
His best-known book is Roget's Super Thesaurus, the expanded Roget that adds concise definitions, sample sentences for hard-to-place words, and a reverse dictionary alongside the standard synonym structure. It has gone through multiple editions since the 1990s and is one of the most-used thesauri among working writers. Descriptionary, his thematic dictionary, uses the opposite structure: words and terms grouped by subject area so a writer who knows what a thing is but not what it is called can find the word. Categories range from anatomy and architecture to weapons, vehicles, costume, religion, politics, and the Internet. It has run to four editions.
His writing-craft titles include The Writer's Digest Sourcebook for Building Believable Characters, a research-driven character-creation reference covering physical description, psychology, occupations, and dialogue patterns, and Damn! Why Didn't I Write That?, a practical guide to writing nonfiction books for money. His historical research references include Everyday Life in the 1800s and The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life from Prohibition Through World War II, both designed to give historical and period novelists the household details, slang, prices, fashions, technology, transportation, and social customs that make period fiction read true.
His general nonfiction includes The Compass in Your Nose and Other Astonishing Facts About Humans, a science-trivia book, and the children's title The Beast in You! Activities and Questions to Explore Evolution. He has also written The Facts on File Student's Thesaurus and the children's Christmas book Grandfather's Christmas Camp.
