Cynthia F. Davidson

The Importance of Paris memoir—How to Include History in Your Story

I am happy to have Cynthia F. Davidson on our October NAMW Member Teleseminar. Some of you may know Cynthia from our NAMW programs since she attended our Oakland, CA conference and took the Write Your Memoir in Six Months intensive.

In her first memoir, The Importance of Paris, Cynthia writes about her life as an American expatriate, since the age of eight, and why she embarks on a quest for the truth to help heal from the trauma of war. As her subtitle Loves, Lies and Resolutions suggests, she had a lot to process psychologically after her family’s home and livelihood were lost. During the war in the former ‘Paris of the Middle East,’ Beirut, Lebanon her sister was shot and her father kidnapped and Cynthia needs to know why the place she loves has devolved into chaos. The ongoing fighting makes it too dangerous for her to return to Beirut for answers, so Cynthia has to find them in Paris, France.

During her three years in the City of Light, the former CBS News journalist meets many other expatriates, from the Middle East, and even the Soviet Union. All of them are dealing with the fallout of wars, serial displacements and distress over the most basic issues of identity and belonging most people take for granted. The memoir is full of cross-cultural conundrums and the history of a region, which may be unfamiliar to readers, yet the author makes all of this very personal and easy to relate to..

Participants will learn:

• How history can be woven into memoir writing and why it needs to be
• Why truth seeking and finding are such powerful healers
• Some history of US involvement in the Middle East and its many wars
• Why addressing issues of corruption, and overcoming it, are so important
• How interfaith & intercultural issues are faced by expatriates of all nationalities
• Which challenges are unique, especially for Arab women & survivors of wars
• What daily life was like in a former Paris of the Middle East, Beirut, Lebanon
• How living in Paris, France created a crucible of change for the author
• Who has answers and how even handsome liars can reveal important truths
• How to deal with the positive and negative fallout after naming names
• Why real women’s true narratives are so important for cultural change
• How becoming an authority on your own life is linked to becoming an author