Cynthia Lyon presents
The Lyon DenStories for people who still believe romance changes everything.
Poetry · Memory · Love · Literature · Beautiful Questions
Come for a story. Stay for another life.
Featured story
A memory, still waiting by the water.
One poem opens a door to summer afternoons, family, teaching, and the small objects that become chapters of a life.
The Summer That Never Left MeHow one poem reminded me that memories never really leave us.Read the story Tonight at The Lyon Den
What are you in the mood for tonight?
Choose a doorway. Every one of them opens somewhere different.
01 · Romance & possibilityFall in LoveLonging, alternate lives, beautiful strangers, and the era your heart remembers.Enter 
02 · Fiction & memoryDisappear Into a StoryShort fiction, remembered summers, and strange little worlds worth lingering in.Enter 
03 · Two literary quizzesDiscover YourselfFind your romance era, then meet the feminine archetype guiding your next chapter.Enter 
04 · Poems & fragmentsRead the PoetPoetry, thoughts, excerpts, and the memories a single line can awaken.Enter From the journal
Stories to read by an open window.
Browse all stories↗“Memories have a remarkable way of waiting patiently until something awakens them.”
Before there was The Lyon Den…
The story began long before the website.
The world of The Lyon Den did not appear overnight. It grew from a lifetime of books, classrooms, travel, cinema, poetry, and beautiful questions.
Born in Berlin to a Navy family, Cynthia’s childhood crossed coastlines and continents—from Newfoundland to Argentina. Literature became the thread through every change: English and Shakespeare, graduate study, teaching, and a life among library shelves.
Classic and foreign films, Broadway and New York, poetry, travel, and an incurably romantic imagination all found their way into the archive. The Lyon Den is where those fragments meet: the life lived, the life remembered, and the other life that might still be waiting.
Writer · Poet · Teacher · Librarian · Romantic
Read Cynthia’s story↗
Meet the author
Cynthia Lyon
After a lifetime spent among books, classrooms, stories, and beautiful questions, Cynthia Lyon created The Lyon Den—a place for romance, memory, imagination, and the lives we might have lived.
More about Cynthia↗Beautiful questions
Which story are you living?
Two reflective quizzes. No wrong answers—only another way to notice what is calling you.
