“Your book is brilliant. It’s a genre buster — it’s a memoir, but it’s also a historical documentary (especially focused on the Middle East), a guide to intercultural interaction, a guide to interpersonal relations and lifestyle (food and travel especially), a Hollywood-type script chock full of steamy encounters (including some exposes of pedophilia), a coming of age story both psychological and spiritual, and an investigation into the use of directed conscious thought (somewhat in the tradition of Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.)

You’ve written one of the best and most enlightening books I’ve ever read. I laughed so many times while reading your book…Best wishes for the readings and promotion in general. This book could be a very big success.” — Jesse Townsley

Thank you! I love my fans. This is fabulous feedback but it’s time for a confession. My initial assumption was men wouldn’t buy or read my memoir. Boy was I wrong as the above review confirms. Rarely have I been so happy to be so mistaken. Several of my male readers have bought multiple copies for their sons, family members and friends. Obviously there’s a lot left for me to learn about peoples’ choices in books!

This past weekend my crash course in buyers’ preferences intensified at the annual Rhode Island Book Expo. My husband Malcolm accompanied me and we had a rip-roaring time, chatting with attendees, while selling a couple hundred dollars worth of books at our display table #702, including his poetry book, my Gifts of Wisdom perpetual calendars (contact for details) and the brand new Westerly Writing Group Anthology as well at the Paris memoir.

Publishing News

Drum roll please… The taping of the promised audio version of the memoir, The Importance of Paris, is done! Whew. That was a marathon. The recordings are being mastered now and soon due out via Amazon. Hope to have that link in next newsletter. In the meantime you can listen to the prologue below:

Memoir Writing Workshop

Would You, Could You, Should You Write A Memoir? Come find out at our workshop, Sunday Dec. 15, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. $160 includes all instructions and materials, unlimited coffee, tea & snacks, plus a light lunch and an autographed copy of The Importance of Paris memoir. Bring along a short sample of your writing to read aloud with the group. Contact me to reserve your place.

Testimonial: “I was honored to be part of Cynthia’s writing workshop, which was surrounded by nature, beautiful people and great food. I learned so much about memoirs and how to begin the process. Cynthia’s intense passion, love of stories, raw honesty, encouragement of women writers, incredible knowledge and background is truly inspiring. I am ready!!” — Maria S.

Our Get It Done group holds its first meeting on the evening of Dec. 18th. Contact me for details. If your New Year Resolutions include getting your book done, join us. We’ll hold each other accountable, exchange feedback and have fun!

Ceremonies

Our last Purification (sweat lodge) ceremony for 2019 will be held on Saturday December 21st at 10 a.m. in observance of the Winter Solstice. Contact me for details. Our first Lodge for 2020 will be on New Year’s Day.

Happy November 1, 2019! And to those recovering from Halloween, especially the sugar candy overload, you have my sympathies. We are thrilled to report the Book Launch Party on Sunday Oct. 27th was a roaring success. A hearty thanks, to each hardy soul who braved the ferocious weather, to celebrate with us in Wakefield, Rhode Island. Despite some cancellations, turnout was better than expected. We ran out of chairs.

Having an audience of friendly readers made my presentation job a piece of cake. You will be missed when the book tour starts! Being questioned by those who don’t know my story will never be as enjoyable as this launch party was. We sold nearly $500 worth of books in two hours, enough to keep us humming along.

If you need a juicy read, a Christmas gift, or a book club selection idea, click here.

Other Events

On October 30th we had our first Readers Reward Raclette Dinner. To qualify for these meals, you must post a picture of yourself holding a copy of the memoir and link it to my personal pages (at FB/Instagram) or The Importance of Paris Facebook page. (If you are not on social media, send your picture to me and I will post it for you). While working on my next book about my unorthodox spiritual journey, I am eager to hear directly from readers about what they want more or less of. This is a fun way to connect.

As per request, our next Readers Raclette Reward meal will be a daytime luncheon, at noon, on Sunday November 10th. Contact me if you already posted your photo and this date and time are better for you. Due manage demand, we try to do this once a month. For now there is no charge but my husband has started joking about opening a raclette restaurant.

Workshop

At the launch party, we did a drawing for a free seat at the next Memoir Writing Workshop Would You, Could You, Should You Write A Memoir? on Sunday Dec. 15, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Gloria won it! Congratulations. That’s a $160 value, and includes all instructions and materials, unlimited coffee, tea and snacks, plus a light lunch, and an autographed copy of The Importance of Paris memoir. You will be asked to bring along a short sample of your writing and share it with the group.

Recent testimonial: “I was honored to be part of Cynthia’s writing workshop which was surrounded by nature, beautiful people, and great food. I learned so much about memoirs and how to begin the process. Cynthia’s intense passion, love of stories, raw honesty, encouragement of women writers, incredible knowledge and background is truly inspiring. I am ready!!” — Maria S.

This is our final workshop in 2019. Running these only four times a year and limiting them to eight participants, means you must reserve your spot soon to get one. Contact me as I put the calendar together for 2020 as I might take this show on the road. Most Americans say they want to write a book about their lives but many never get around to it because they don’t know the steps involved. I designed this one day event to help you decide if memoir writing would be the right choice for you. Before making the commitment, save yourself the headaches I went through via hard won lessons. In Would You, Could You, Should You Write A Memoir? I chart the journey from inception to publication. After this course, if you want to continue, you can join our Get It Done group. We will meet regularly in 2020. If your New Year Resolutions include getting your book done, we’ll hold each other accountable, share feedback, and have fun!

Wisdom Wheel

Happy birthday to all our Scorpio friends and family, we are in their Clarity Birth Law month. All of you are invited to the Integrative Mental Heath Conference in Exeter, RI on Sunday Nov. 3rd at the Canonicus Center where I’ll present the Wisdom Wheel. Contact me for more info.

Since developing this method two decades ago, I’ve taught the Wisdom Wheel to hundreds of people, from all walks of life. At this conference, the focus will be on how to use it to reduce the epidemic of anxieties plaguing our modern lives. Anyone can learn to reframe their existence and reconnect to the timeless truths of Nature. Tune into what human beings used before Freud and psychoanalysis, rather than overreacting to upsetting news, personal or public.

Ceremonies

Our last Purification (sweat lodge) ceremony for 2019 will be held on Saturday December 21st at 10 a.m. in observance of the Winter Solstice. Contact me for details. Our first Lodge for 2020 will be on New Year’s Day.

A huge shout out to everyone who has already posted their picture on social media, holding your copies of the memoir! Your enthusiastic response has convinced us to do more than one Raclette Reward Dinner for Readers! Our first dinner is Wednesday night, October 30th. Contact me for details.

Please join us at The Book Launch Party on Oct 27th from 2-4 pm. Come to the Village clubhouse at Indian Lake, 191 Table Rock Road, Wakefield, RI. You can buy your copy (free of sales tax for that night only) and have it autographed. If you have a special someone who loves Paris, buy another copy. It would make a wonderful Christmas or birthday gift.

For those who attending in person, there will be two drawings: one for another Raclette Dinner, the second for a free place at our next memoir writing workshop on December 15th. These offers are only for those present. If you have concerns about what’s going on in the world, that’s another reason to join us on Sunday October 27th. We will have a lively Q & A session after I read a few sections from the memoir. The room only holds 60, so RSVP before we run out of space.

For those living too far away to come, please listen to my Oct. 11th interview by the National Association of Memoir Writers. The live event was only available to members, who asked questions, but you can hear the entire recording here. Linda Joy Meyers, who founded the association almost a dozen years ago, made my part easy. Having interviewed countless authors, and written her own memoirs, she knows the genre and its challenges as well as anyone. We discussed how I wove in the complicated histories of Paris, France and the former Paris of the Middle East, and the long journey it was to get this book done. My original intention in 1984 was to write another woman’s biography. That project morphed into a novel, which was shelved for over two decades, before finally re-emerging as a memoir. Wherever you are in the journey of getting your book done, don’t give up.

Workshop

Our next workshop Would You, Could You, Should You Write A Memoir? The Journey from Inception to Publication is on Sunday December 15th 10 am to 4 pm. This is our last one in 2019, and we only take 8, so reserve your spot soon. $160 includes instruction, and all materials, including unlimited coffee, tea and snacks plus a light lunch. Contact me for more info. Consider it an early Christmas gift, for you or your loved one, especially if 2020 New Year resolutions include getting your book done! We are forming a Get It Done group for 2020 and will meet regularly to hold each other accountable. Meeting milestones and achieving writing goals is more fun when you celebrate them with others.

We also rent rooms to writers. Introductory rate is $35 per night. This includes the evening meal and supportive encouragement, for those sharing what they wrote around the dinner table here at Hope House where people come to write and do ceremonies.

Ceremonies

The schedule for the remainder of 2019 ceremonies is: Sunday November 3rd and Saturday December 21st for Winter Solstice. Our Purification (sweat lodge) ceremonies begin at 10 am. Contact me for details.

You are cordially invited to dial into my National Association of Memoir Writers teleseminar on Friday Oct 11th! 11 AM PDT / 12 PM MDT / 1 PM CDT / 2 PM EDT

The President of the National Association of Memoir Writers, Linda Joy Myers, will be interviewing me. She has written two memoirs, Song of the Plains and the prize-winning Don’t Call Me Mother as well as The Power of Memoir—How to Write Your Healing Story and a workbook The Journey of Memoir: The Three Stages of Memoir Writing. She coaches writers, and offers teleseminars and workshops nationally.

She has asked me to speak about ways to include history — without losing readers’ attention — when writing a memoir. Not an easy task! This was quite a challenge for me and my outstanding editor, Gigie Hall.

In successive drafts of my book The Importance of Paris, we grappled with how to fold in the history of more than one region — not just Paris, France but also one of its colonies, the Paris of the Middle East, as Beirut, Lebanon was once called.

Like immigrant narratives, expatriate memoirs are becoming their own sub-genre. Since readers are often learning new histories from our firsthand stories, it helps to be skillful in our delivery of the historical facts. This is especially important as readers’ minds may have been politicized at a distance, favoring one side of the narrative or the other.

And since my memoir concerns a time of war and a quest for the truth to help me heal from the trauma caused by war, I had to explain decades of armed conflicts in the Arab world, knowing few readers will have visited the region or studied its history.

Join me for the launch of my memoir

You are also invited to The Book Launch Party on October 27th from 2-4 pm.

Join us for a reading and a question and answer period at the Village at Indian Lake, 191 Table Rock Road, Wakefield, RI 02879. Room holds only 60 so RSVP cynthiafdavidson@gmail.com before we run out of space.

You can buy your copy in person and get it autographed by the author. Makes a wonderful Christmas gift for that special someone who loves Paris. Light refreshments will be provided. You may even win one of the raffle seats to next month’s Raclette Dinner.

Workshop

Our next workshop Would You, Could You, Should You Write A Memoir: The Journey from Inception to Publication is on Sunday December 15th 10AM to 4PM. Last one in 2019, and we only take 8, so reserve your spot soon. $160 includes instruction, and all materials, including unlimited coffee, tea & snacks plus a light lunch. Contact me for more info. Consider this an early Christmas gift, for you or your loved one, especially if 2020 New Year Resolutions include getting your book done!

For 2020 we are forming a Get It Done group. We will meet regularly to hold each other accountable and have fun celebrating each milestone on the way towards achieving our writing goals. For those who need to stay overnight, we have rooms for writers. Introductory rate is $35 per night, which includes the evening meal, and supportive encouragement for those sharing what they wrote around the table after dinner. Here at Hope House we help people recommit to their writing project(s).

Ceremonies

The schedule for the remainder of 2019 ceremonies is: Saturday October 5th then Sunday November 3rd and Saturday December 21st for Winter Solstice. All begin at 10AM. Contact me for details.

It’s out! The print version of the memoir is now available. Thank you for your faith and patience. We added a Reader’s Guide with questions for book clubs, which was not included in the ebook released in June. And save the date October 27th for the Book Launch Party! Additional details in next newsletter

Quite a swirl of emotions on this Friday the 13th Full Harvest Moon. As fate would have it, the print ready manuscript was uploaded to Amazon on the 18th anniversary of 9/11. A bittersweet homage this book is, to all who have perished out of ignorance, on that day, before it, and since.

Our ignorance is the real enemy. Our ignorance of each other, and our ignorance about the alternatives to such appalling hatred spawns the violence. This is why I felt compelled to write my story. The importance of my time in Paris was how it helped me heal after what had happened to me, my family, and many others in the Middle East. We must find alternatives to the waste of war.

On a positive note, the wait for our Kirkus Review was worth it!

“… A richly told memoir that’s steeped in history.” — Kirkus Review

Their opinion matters a lot to libraries, so if all 120,000 of them would buy one copy, I could afford to write full time.

Wisdom Wheel

Forgiveness is our theme this month. How appropriate. As the Autumn Equinox arrives on Sunday Sept. 22, we start celebrating our Libra friends’ whose Birth Law is Forgiveness. On the Wisdom Wheel Enlightenment is the balancer of Forgiveness and indicates where our work is in either direction.

Workshop

Our September workshop Would You, Could You, Should You Write A Memoir? : The Journey from Inception to Publication is fully inscribed. Thanks to those who signed up. Our next one is the last for 2019, on Sunday December 15th 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

We only take eight, so reserve your spot soon. $160 includes unlimited coffee, tea and snacks as well as light lunch, instruction, and all materials. Contact me for more info. Consider this an early Christmas gift, especially if you or your loved one’s 2020 New Year Resolutions include getting your book done!

In the New Year we will form a regularly meeting group to help hold each other accountable for getting the job done! And having fun while achieving our writing goals. For those traveling from afar, our exchange students have departed. We now have rooms to rent to writers. If you need a place to stay for the workshop, or for a weekend, a week, or a month, to focus on a project, we charge $35 per night. This includes the evening meal, and supportive encouragement, for those who want to share their writing around the table after dinner. Recommit to your own writing project(s)!

Ceremonies

Our Autumn Equinox Lodge is on Sunday Sept. 22. The schedule for the remainder of 2019 ceremonies is: Saturday October 5th, Sunday November 3rd, and Saturday December 21st for Winter Solstice. All begin at 10 a.m. Contact me for details.

We held back this issue of the newsletter, till after the Labor Day holiday. Hope yours was restful with ample free time for reading good books! Mine was busy with the Turkish and Dominican students we’ve been hosting. The Turkish students made us all thick Turkish coffee and showed us how you turn the cup upside down afterward to have your fortune read. Whether we leave our home countries, or not, we can always learn about other cultures. My memoir says a lot about that part of our Journeys.

Some of the latest reader feedback has me thrilled:

“Wow. Your book is fantastic! I’ve been reading the sample of your book on Kindle and enthralled. I’m learning so much about history through your eyes and enjoying Paris at the same time. Super good job with language and descriptions and history!” — Linda Joy Myers, President of the National Association of Memoir Writers & Co-President of the Women’s National Book Association, SF

So grateful to receive this assessment from an expert on the genre of memoir writing. If planning to write one, do yourself a favor, and join the National Association of Memoir Writers. Learn from their workshops and conferences. They helped me immensely.

And, drum roll please, Linda Joy Myers has kindly invited me to be her guest on the October 11th teleseminar from NAMW. Save the date! More details to come in next month’s newsletter, with a link to the live event, so you can call in your questions.

And, we just received a favorable review from Kirkus! More details in next newsletter. We held back the print version hoping they would say something positive to include on our back cover. The wait was worth it! The nod from this venerable reviewer will help us sell to libraries whose purchases are guided by Kirkus recommendations.

What I’m Reading

Our book club picked Tommy Orange’s debut novel, “There There.” Urban Native American stories told by a Cheyenne and Arapaho author whose book was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Come check in with me on Goodreads!

Workshop

You still have time to sign up for our one day Rhode Island workshop Would You, Could You, Should You Write A Memoir? : The Journey from Inception to Publication. The next one is on Sunday September 15th, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Only 2 spots left. $160 per person includes unlimited coffee, tea & snacks as well as light lunch. Contact me for more info. This final 2019 workshop will be on Sunday December 15th. Book soon especially if you have a 2020 New Years Resolution to get your book done!

For those traveling from afar, our exchange students are leaving soon, and we have rooms to rent to writers. If you need a place to stay for the workshop, or for a weekend, a week, or a month, to focus on a project, we charge $35 per night. This includes the evening meal, and supportive encouragement, for those who want to share their writing around the table after dinner. Recommit to your own writing project(s).

Ceremonies

Never any charge for sacred ceremonies. Our next sweat (Purification) Lodge is Saturday August 3, 10 a.m. And the following monthly ‘open’ community one will be for the Autumn Equinox on Sunday, Sept. 22, 10 am. Please RSVP as these fill up fast.

“Above all I admire your frankness about the people you met, your parents & your love life – very brave to put so much of it down on paper for all to read, and it makes a riveting story.” — Fiona Dunlop

Merci Fiona, my old Paris friend! When setting out on this memoir writing journey, no one told me one of its greatest rewards would be reconnecting with those I knew so long ago. Fiona was part of “The Importance of Paris” years. She is mentioned several times in my book but we had lost touch for three decades. Currently living in England and Spain, she read the ebook recently and we are happily in touch again.

Now in our sixties, we are both authors. Only a friend like Fiona could fill me in on what happened to our mutual acquaintances from those days in France in our early thirties. This gift of continuity, of coming full circle, is the most precious, unexpected, surprise to come from where this writing work has taken me.

And, I’m making plans to see Fiona and attend one of her Andalucía immersion adventures in Spain (see more on her website). As my memoir readers know, that place and the once upon a time Golden Age of peace between the Muslims, Jews and Christians, is my favorite historical period.

While on the theme of the journey, which we know is more important than the destination, my editor and I have agreed to momentarily stop the presses on the print edition of the memoir. Its Kirkus review is due out on September 3rd and we have decided to wait for it, hoping that it is positive so we can add the comments to our back cover. Libraries and bookstores rely upon their judgment, especially when buying independently published books like mine. Expect the link to the print edition to be in the next newsletter, arriving in your inboxes after Labor Day.

Wisdom Wheel

On the 23rd of August we begin to celebrate the birthdays of our Virgo friends and family members, and these run until the Autumn Equinox on Sept. 22. This is the Journey time of year on the Wisdom Wheel. All Virgos have the Journey as their Birth Law.

Workshop

A reminder to those who did not make it to our pilot workshop, we are offering it again, on Sunday September 15th. As summer ends and the kids return to school, (re)start your own writing project(s). Would You, Could You, Should You Write A Memoir? : The Journey from Inception to Publication. Only 8 spots per workshop to facilitate individual attention, so sign up soon. $160 per person.

Ceremonies

Never any charge for sacred ceremonies. Our next sweat (Purification) Lodge is on the Autumn Equinox on Sunday, Sept. 22, 10 am. Please RSVP as these fill up fast.

Shadow

“Every scandalous flaw is mine.” — Rumi, 13th century Muslim mystic

Rumi’s advice often echoed in my mind while writing my memoir. Now I no longer have my laptop and anonymity to hide behind when doing public readings, and practicing this out loud is more challenging.

And yet no truthful memoir can be written, published and publicly discussed unless we first accept not just “every scandalous flaw” we have, but that others will judge them, and us for admitting we have them. As I face this, it helps to be une femme d’un certain âge, as the French say, when implying one is a mature, and worldly woman.

On July 21st in front of a mixture of friends and strangers, on a scorching hot Sunday afternoon at a lakeside clubhouse in Rhode Island, I survived my first public reading in the US. My Turkish American friend Naide, who invited me to read from my memoir, confided how much she loved the book prior to introducing me.

“I just finished reading it (ebook) last night. I love your honesty… This is a feminine manifesto… I wish I had taken more chances in my life and had your courage.” Thank you Naide.

Although the presentation felt a bit like losing my virginity, all over again in public, I did have a great time. And from their questions, I could tell the audience of about 30 people also enjoyed it.

When you only have 20 minutes to speak, it is tricky to pick the right parts to share, from a 377-page book. I started with the Prologue and learned two valuable lessons.

Always have someone in the audience who has recently read the book! In this case it was Naide, and she called out suggestions like, “Read the part when you were in the south of France…”

Best to include people from both Paris’s if possible, the Paris of the Middle East (Beirut) as well as Paris, France because they add a lot more credibility to the question/answer discussion period afterwards.

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Wisdom Wheel

The Shadow is not only the Birth Law of all our Leo friends, born between July 23 and Aug 22, it is also a Law we each get to spend time with. We live under the Shadow at ages 12, 39, 66, and 95. While circumnavigating the Wheel of Life, we pass through all the different energies, each with its opportunities for growth and development. Next spring, when I turn 66, I’ll be consciously studying the particular wisdom the Shadow has to offer.

What I’m Reading & Listening To

Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith by Andrew Wilson. The author Highsmith specialized in the darker, Shadow side of human personalities. You may have seen the award-winning 2015 film Carol, about forbidden love between women in the 1950’s, made from one of her 22 novels. This is the first biography.

Workshop

Sign up for our next one day workshop, on Sunday September 15th Would You, Could You, Should You Write A Memoir? : The Journey from Inception to Publication. Only 6 spots left, to keep it intimate and facilitate individual attention. $160 per person. Contact me for more info.

We now offer rooms to rent, for writers needing to get away for a weekend, a week, or a month, to focus on a project. $35 per night. We provide the evening meal and supportive encouragement, for those who want to share their writing around the table after dinner. Recommit to your own writing project(s) as summer winds down and the kids return to school. Contact me for more info.

Ceremonies

Never any charge for sacred ceremonies. Our next sweat (Purification) Lodge is Saturday August 3, 10 am. And the following monthly ‘open’ community one will be for the Autumn Equinox on Sunday, Sept. 22, 10 am. Please RSVP as these fill up fast.

Shadow

Just publish a memoir if you are curious to learn about the psychological phenomenon of the Shadow! Since the ebook version of The Importance of Paris became available on Amazon June 21st, reviews and feedback have been coming in. They’re teaching me a lot about my readers. I’ll share some in these newsletters:

“Strikes a good balance between intimate, personal relationships and world events…Few feel that connection as strongly. It was JUICY!! I loved reading about the experiences of love…in all its forms…. love of place, love of country, love of ideals, love of learning… erotic love, the love of friends and family… how fraught it all is, and how beautiful, and how necessary, and how difficult. Transcendent.” — Alison Veres

I loved this one. It’s generous and genuine.

On the other hand, some folks have gone completely silent. Observing the range of reactions by family and friends is instructive. Any newly published author needs to expect this. It can be surprising to see who your real friends are…. While some will congratulate you, others will not be able to celebrate your achievement, or compliment you on completing such a task, because of what might be going on in their Shadows.

Dealing with feelings of jealousy and envy are familiar to me because I felt them more often in the years before writing my book. It is hard to be happy for someone else when you are mad at yourself, though it took me awhile to see that connection. These reactions no longer surprise me after working on so many drafts of the memoir, which forced me to confront my own Shadow side. The good news is our Shadow sides are incredibly rich with insights if we dare to mine the darkness deeply.

Carl G. Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology, was the first to popularize this less savory aspect of human psychology. The Shadow and individuation issues were the chief contributors to his falling out with his psychoanalysis mentor Sigmund Freud. I highly recommend you do some exploring of your own Shadow.

Wisdom Wheel

The Shadow has been schooling me since creating the Wisdom Wheel in 1996 as it is the 17th Law of its 36 Laws. Holding the space from July 23 to Aug 22 on the calendar means this is the Birth Law of our Leo friends whose birthdays will soon be coming. Fire in the Heart Lions are the only ones who could deal so adroitly with the Shadow and Carl G. Jung is one of them.

What I’m Reading & Listening To

“Only the Shadow knows…” I’ve checked out the classic radio suspense show The Shadow on CD’s from our local library. Time to finally hear these Walter B. Gibson stories, which debuted on the radio this month of July, in 1930. After eight decades, I want to know what the staying power of this series was.

Workshop

A reminder to who did not make it to our pilot workshop, Would You, Could You, Should You Write A Memoir?: The Journey from Inception to Publication. We are offering it again, on Sunday September 15th and planning some writing retreats too for those who need to get away, for a week, or a month, to focus on a project. Contact me if you’d like to book a room to write in! As summer winds down and the kids return to school, (re)start your own writing project(s). Only 8 spots per workshop to facilitate individual attention, so sign up soon. $160 per person.

Ceremonies

Never any charge for sacred ceremonies. Our next sweat (Purification) Lodge is Saturday August 3, 10 am. And the following monthly ‘open’ community one will be for the Autumn Equinox on Sunday, Sept. 22, 10 am. Please RSVP as these fill up fast.

Initiation

“Rather than roll a grenade into the room, I’ve written this book…”
— Cynthia F. Davidson, in The Importance of Paris, Acknowledgements

Sharing the Fourth of July fireworks, with the launching of this American expatriate memoir, feels significant. Though I can’t claim any credit for planning it, the coincidence is much appreciated. As you will see when you read the book, my intentions are to spark some serious discussions.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness…” from the US Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.

My story concerns the pursuit of happiness, life, liberty, truths, and self-evidence. And this publishing event happily marks my personal declaration of independence, from the decades of work, multiple versions, and endless edits of this book!

When the US Declaration of Independence from the British Empire was written 243 years ago, it was supposed to explain what was going to be different, about the purpose of these United States. Have we lived up to those promises?

As a woman, my rights were not included in that original declaration, nor were the rights of the enslaved or the indigenous people. We’ve had to fight for those rights, to education, equal opportunity, and even self-expression. My own grandmother was twenty years old before American women finally received the right to vote in this country in 1920. Yet we women have been expected to shoulder the burdens, without having any say in the decision-making process, much less a seat at the table of power.

Wisdom Wheel

Because of that July 4th birthday, the Birth Law of the United States is Initiation. Are we still a great experiment, or a disappointment to our own stated values? Equality is still not true for all. The combustion continues.

Writing News

People are asking me, “So, how’s your book coming along?” When I answer, “It’s done! It’s already up on Amazon!” they do a double take.

Getting used to being a published author, and not just another writer working on a book, takes practice for my friends too. In one of the regular circles I attend, Sarah Daigle’s Meeting of the Minds gathering, our topic was vulnerability and how the fear of asking for what you want/need holds you back. I’m working on asking for reviews of the memoir.

One of my first readers, Sheila Dobbyn, who attended the pilot workshop made my day when she wrote, “Cynthia, your book gets better and better! I am so excited for you. Maybe sometime I can have you and some of my other expat friends over for tea and you can exchange experiences and talk about your book. Also happy to introduce you to Inkfish book store owner who often brings in local authors.”

We are putting together a fundraising evening too, at an educational foundation where I will speak a bit about the Middle East and read from the book while we eat Lebanese food and hold a Q&A for those who attend. Hope to do a lot more of those!

For all of those who would like to hold the book in their hands, the print version of the book should be available early August. Stay tuned!

Workshop

Thanks to those who attended our pilot workshop, and made it so enjoyable. We’re offering it again, on Sunday September 15th. As summer ends and the kids return to school, (re)start your own writing project(s). Would You, Could You, Should You Write A Memoir? : The Journey from Inception to Publication. Only 8 spots per workshop to facilitate individual attention, so sign up soon. $160 per person.

Ceremonies

Never any charge for sacred ceremonies. Our next sweat (Purification) Lodge is Sunday, July 7, 10 a.m. And the following monthly open community one is on Saturday August 3. Please RSVP as these fill up fast.