Cynthia Moore

Cynthia Moore is an award-winning playwright and performer who wrote and directed theater in the San Francisco Bay Area for over twenty years. A founding member of Otrabanda Company, she worked with the Blake Street Hawkeyes before leaving the theatre to earn a master’s degree in clinical psychology. She has worked as a mental health counselor for twenty-three years, with a particular focus on the connection between spirituality and trauma. She has taught numerous workshops in creativity, writing from the heart, and more.

About Dancing On Coals
Endorsed by Whoopi Goldberg and tracking a life rich enough to entertain on the silver screen, Cynthia Moore’s Dancing on Coals (She Writes Press – March 2025) takes readers through wildly varied incarnations in the author’s life that both impress and amuse…and sometimes make us shudder. From her childhood in the Bahamas to finishing school in Switzerland, a theater career (including a turn as an award-winning playwright), and becoming a therapist, we take a bumpy roller coaster ride with Cynthia until we ultimately land at her final phase: happiness and peace with her husband, children, and, most importantly, herself.

Dancing on Coals begins at the end: sharing domestic bliss, but the author deftly peels back the layers on the long, emotionally tumultuous journey required to get there. Through beautifully written vignettes, Cynthia introduces us to her drunken parents, particularly a mother whose skills are questionable at best. Having deficient role models for much of her life, the author was programmed to choose less-than-optimal relationships with men until much later, when David enters her life and brings a newfound stability, filled with pancakes and the type of cozy family scenes Cynthia always craved.

At times humorous and self-deprecating, at times poignant and heartbreaking, this is the story of one woman’s path from abandonment to wholeness and authenticity. A memoir for readers who enjoy armchair traveling, madcap real-life episodes, and well-written stories, Cynthia Moore will both captivate you and leave you smiling.