Lifestories have always played an important role in Denis’ life. He grew up in a three-generation home in Maine with paternal grandparents who lived upstairs. As a child, he heard tales of his extended family and their history recounted by the family storyteller, his mémère. Is it any wonder then that he has devoted himself to helping people write their memoirs?
He has been primarily involved with memoir writing for decades. For a catalog of his publications, click here. But he has also written fiction.
As a fiction writer
Denis drew on family characters, settings, and stories for his fiction. In 1989, he won the Maine Fiction Award for Mountain Dance & Other Stories. His other fiction titles include What Became of Them and Other Stories from Franco-America (1988), and Lives in Translation: An Anthology of Contemporary Franco-American Writings (1991) which he edited.
Denis’s short fiction has twice been honored with the Maine Writing Fellowship Award (1991, 1996), an NEA-based merit award.
As a how-to writer
Denis’s Turning Memories Into Memoirs/A Handbook for Writing Lifestories (1992, 1998, 2006) has helped 
thousands of people to write their memoirs. It has now sold over 35,000 copies in paperback and countless other copies in ebook format.
Receive the level of support you need to finish your memoir.
Launching May 21
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From DIY with our free materials to workshop feedback from a mentor and peers that will expand and polish your book.
The Family Package with Bonus
The Family Package includes French Boy and We Were Not Spoiled—both good reads in themselves and together they are a dynamite addition to anyone’s bookshelf. The link will send you to Amazon [I know, not exactly small business but they are the printers and distributors of these books] so we can’t give you a discount per se but we can offer you the e-versions to both books for free in lieu of a discount. Just send us the receipt of your purchases and we will expedite the e-books.
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Other titles include The Photoscribe/A Writing Guide (1997) and the Memoir Writing Series (2016).
As a memoir writer
He coauthored his mother’s memoir, We Were Not Spoiled (2013), and his wife’s memoir A Sugary Frosting (2017) and a joint journal My Eye Fell Into The Soup (2018).
His memoir French Boy appeared in 2023 and his Here to Stay/Life in Seventeenth-Century Canada will appear in the fall of in 2025.
Memoir Coach, Editor, Teacher and Ghostwriter: Destined to Happen
It was a natural leap from his own family stories embodied in 
autobiographical fiction to helping others to record their stories in well-written accounts that apply all the techniques of fiction writing to autobiography, family reminiscence, and scrapbooking.
In 1996, Denis was named Lifewriting Professional of the Year by the Association of Personal Historians.
Denis holds a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Education. He lives and works in Lisbon Falls, Maine, just a mile from his boyhood home his family shared with his paternal grandparents.
Call 207-353-5454—or email him—for a free consultation about how he can help to write your memoir.