French Boy / A 1950s Franco-American Childhood – The Memoir Network | RSS

Our Christmas Réveillon—A Franco Custom

Denis Ledoux — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 20:31:13 +0000

At Christmas, it was a Franco custom to have an all-night party—a réveillon—after the midnight mass. The following excerpt is from my French Boy / A 1950s Franco-American Childhood. ___ For our first Christmas in our new home, my parents hosted a Christmas réveillon for both sides of the family. We children grew excited witnessing […]

Sit in on this Virtual Memoir Tour

Denis Ledoux — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 19:39:00 +0000

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 […]

Showing up for my memoir– again!

Denis Ledoux — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 12:00:00 +0000

DL: This is a reprint of a post that appeared in September of 2022. It strikes me as pertinent for many readers of The Lifewriter’s Digest. The final publication of French Boy took another year. I republish this both to present a proven process and to own that I have my challenges, too. I’m not […]

Excerpt from My Memoir French Boy: I come into the world.

Denis Ledoux — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 18:42:17 +0000

DL: “I Come Into the World” is an excerpt from my memoir French Boy / A 1950s Franco-American Childhood. The use of Canadien, the French version of Canadian, in this text as everywhere in the memoir is to distinguish an English-speaking Canadian from a French-speaking one without resorting to the term French Canadian. [When was […]

French Boy Hits #1 in Best Seller ‘New England Memoirs’ List

Denis Ledoux — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 21:24:47 +0000

The category best seller status on Amazon is fleeting but there was at least one moment in the past weekend when French Boy was #1 in “New England Memoirs.” That feels good—in fact, very good! I want to thank everyone who has bought a copy. To others, I ask you to please help to keep […]

Interview with Denis Ledoux French Boy / A 1950s Franco-American Childhood

Denis Ledoux — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 11:00:57 +0000

DL: The following interview I conducted with myself is available to anyone wishing to reproduce it in a blog, on a website on in print media. We ask only that you let us know you are using the piece. Q. Can you tell our readers what French Boy is about and why you were impelled to write […]

Press Release: French Boy / A 1950s Franco-American Childhood by Denis Ledoux

Denis Ledoux — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 14:27:00 +0000

NOTE: You are invited to the book launch for French Boy! The links to attend live or via Zoom are at the end of this press release. Re: French Boy / A 1950s Franco-American Childhood / Denis Ledoux, Soleil Press, 2024, 345 pages, photos, $19.95. Contact: Memoirs@TheMemoirNetwork.com Release date: October 16, 2023 “It was a […]

Writing more Deeply: The pain in telling the truth

Denis Ledoux — Tue, 27 Sep 2022 11:00:00 +0000

My new memoir, French Boy (due out in the summer of 2023), is about my childhood. Much about this time in my life has a context that is unique and consequently different from that of my contemporaries. This memoir has a place in the world of memoirs, and I want it to find that place, […]

Self-Publishing Means Extroversion!

Denis Ledoux — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 11:30:00 +0000

DL: This post was published in 2022. French Boy/A 1950s Franco-American Childhood has been out in the world for two years. In 2025, I am about to publish Here To Stay/Life in 17th Century Canada. The same introversion/extraversion struggle is about to play itself out again. ___ I am committed to independent publishing—even if self-publishing, […]

Beginning the End Stage Before Publication

Denis Ledoux — Tue, 23 Aug 2022 20:51:54 +0000

Last week, I realized I needed to acknowledge to myself that I was in the end stage before publication of writing my memoir. For one thing, I finally came up with a name—French Boy / A 1950s Franco-American Chidhood—that I’m likely to keep. (So many titles in the trash!) This title reveals the content of […]