In this category (Books and Posts from Denis Ledoux), I share excerpts from books—published and unpublished—I have written over the many years I have immersed myself in memoir writing.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- Here to Stay [an unpublished history of my seventeenth-century Canadian ancestors],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- In Another Century [my as-yet unpublished account of seminary high-school experience].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.
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 […]
Showing up for my memoir– again!
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.
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
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
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
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: [email protected] Release date: October 16, 2023 “It was a […]
Writing more Deeply: The pain in telling the truth
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!
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, […]