In this category (Books and Posts from Denis Ledoux), I share excerpts from books—published and unpublished—I have written over the many years I have immersed myself in memoir writing.
There continues, after all these years, to be something about the genre that I find creative and satisfying—whether I am writing my own books or ghostwriting for others. (I have several dozens of these co-authored tomes on my shelves by now! It goes to show that, if you show up every day for 30 years to write, before you know it, you have a long list of titles!)
The books and posts from Denis Ledoux
The many stories in this category fall into several subsections and are drawn from the following books:
- Here to Stay [an unpublished history of my seventeenth-century Canadian ancestors],
- We Were Not Spoiled [co-written with my mother whose story it is]. The book covers the early life (to age 30) of a representative Franco-Mainer in the middle of the last century. People have said, “You have written the story of my mother!”
- In Another Century [my as-yet unpublished account of seminary high-school experience]. My education and life during these years in the seminary resemble the nineteenth century more than they did the twentieth century in which I was living,
- Marie Bilodeau [these are family stories that are composed from my memory of my grandmother and from some research], and
- My Eye Fell Into the Soup [drawn from both a journal of Martha Blowen, my dear companion in life and in work, before she succumbed to cancer and from my concurrent journals].
In conclusion
I hope you enjoy these stories under the title of Books and Posts from Denis Ledoux. They are dear to me, and I hope they will prove interesting to you also.
How an Idea Becomes a Book
This is how an idea becomes a book. ___ Every month (at 1 PM/ET, 12 CT, 11 MT, 10 PT), you can participate in a live memoir-writing workshop on ZOOM. Usually, it occurs on the third Thursday of the month, but in November, I will be traveling to give a book talk on the third […]
Book recommendation: “Here to Stay”
[This review of my latest book was posted on Substack on October 20, 2025, by Jean Edouard Pouliot. Thank you profusely, Jean, for your support in publishing Book recommendation: “Here to Stay”.] [Jean’s text] I wanted to mention a wonderful new book by my friend, Denis Ledoux, who has been writing for years about the […]
Preparing for publication: it doesn’t happen by itself.
Preparing for publication is not optional, and it doesn’t happen by itself. You do well to think of the process beforehand, make a checklist of steps and then complete each task to the best of your ability. Too many independently published books are finished and then sent into the world on the fly. The authors […]
Many disparities between women in early Canada and in New England
[Jeanne Mance, founder of the first hospital in Montréal (the Hôtel-Dieu) and a key figure among the women in early Canada.] We want to believe that European settlement of North America was identical, but it wasn’t. The French and the English colonies established different patterns. The women in early Canada had a more public presence. […]
Telling the Past as It Probably Was!
My latest book is Here to Stay/Lives in 17th Century Canada. In this post, I want to make clear that people then lived with different paradigms. It’s the only way I can explain things. Telling the past of New France was not easy. As I was writing Here to Stay, a story of my ancestors […]
Have You ever Written an Advance Review?
Write an Advance Review of Here to Stay/Lives in 17th Century Canada. Thanks for stopping by! I need you help. Here to Stay/Lives in 17th Century Canada is about to launch into the world. Your advance review of Here to Stay will be an important element of its success. What is an advance review of […]
Filles du Roi / Daughters of the King: Marthe Quittel Comes for a Husband
Among the eight filles du roi aboard the Marie-Thérèse who were coming to find husbands was a woman from Normandy, Marthe Quittel, a Protestant from Rouen.
Writing the right memoir
not writing the right memoir can constrict your writing. The person who has put down one memoir a number of weeks, or months or even years ago, may not be able to pick it up again because the energy that had initially informed it is gone. The memoir has become the wrong memoir to be […]
Sit in on this Virtual Memoir Tour
Today, I am urging you to sit back and enjoy this virtual memoir tour in which I read an excerpt read from my memoir French Boy/A 1950s Franco-American Childhood. Here’s some necessary background: I did not learn English until I went to grade school. My brother had preceded me in school where he had learned […]