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Denis Ledoux: Can you tell our readers what your book, Making Peace with the Pieces of My Life, is about and why you were compelled to write your book? What was driving you to spend the time, energy, and money to get this book out into the world? Dana: I wanted to reach the divorced or those parenting a child with a heroin addiction. Adoptees doing DNA and searching for their birth family. My story became a story I had to tell so they knew they were not alone and hopefully find peace at the end of their journey. Denis: (more…)

We all arrive at adulthood with some difficult painful memories. In this post, I offer you procedures for dealing with and healing those memories.

First of all, writing about painful memories should not be an occasion to re-traumatize yourself. Stop for the moment if you feel overcome, but if you feel ready to write about a painful time, begin by writing all the details of the memory. Details need not be significant. If there was a cup of coffee on the table, mention it. You will find that little details help bring your memory back.

Yes, difficult, painful memories are disturbing.

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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 at #1 there by getting your copy of French Boy and don’t forget to write a eulogious review! For more information, check out our French Boy pages on our website. French Boy / A 1950s Franco-American Childhood Praise for French Boy Best, Denis (more…)

A successful memoir interview will add depth to your memoir.

While you know much about your story, it is always beneficial to gather information from other sources to fill in the gaps. These sources can be formal research on the net or in a library or it can be reviewing letters and journals or talking with people who know parts of your story.

Here is some guidance on an important step that will ground your memoir. This step involves interviewing people.

In this post, I offer eight tips for making a successful memoir interview as part of your research.

1) For a successful memoir interview, plan enough time to be with your subject. 

 

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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 your book? What was driving you to spend the time, energy, and money to get this book out into the world?
A. I wrote impelled by a strong desire to record the life of my community—the Francophone Canadian-American community of New England. This is a book about life in Franco-America in the 1950s. It uses my life as an organizing principle. A good memoir is not only about the individual who is its presenting subject but it is about something bigger, about some whole that the memoir subject is part of. I want to celebrate our experience. I do not want the world to forget we were here.
 
Q. Can you tell us how long it took from the time you conceived the book to the time you had it published? How many years did you spend in active writing? Were there long breaks in between active writing periods? If so, what happened to get you writing again?

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There is power in writing your story. Your memoir can transform you as it leads to understanding the energy in your life and ultimately making that energy work for you.

The three pillars of a powerful memoir I want to talk about are the old stand-bys of character, action, and setting. A story is not a journal entry. Unlike a journal, a memoir needs development.  Ranting and raving fit into a journal but not into a story—unless ranting and raving are in the dialog. Story has its own dynamics which in turn lead to their own conclusions. In writing your memoir, connect to your story as a literary form—literary here refers to in writing. There are requirements that go into the creation of an effective story—whether written or spoken. As mentioned before these are character, action, and setting.

Be Guided by These 3 Pillars of a Powerful Memoir When Writing Your Story

1. Your characters are the people in your story

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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

french boy book cover

“It was a surprise for me to discover as a child that French was not the majority language in Maine, let alone the US,” recalls Denis Ledoux of his Franco-American boyhood in his new memoir French Boy / A 1950s Franco-American Childhood. “I came to realize that my language and culture were marginal and not appreciated by the larger society.”

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Why does what you want to write become so difficult to do the moment you sit down to write a memoir? Where are the words you need to convey the excitement or the dread or the anticipation of your life experience? After writing a while, you are shocked to realize that what appears on the computer screen has no pizzazz! This drivel is not what you had in mind when you thought with excitement of writing your memoir. So why is writing with passion so hard sometimes? (more…)

Avoiding vagueness in writing is something many writers struggle with.

When writing slips into vagueness, the reader reads and rereads the text and does not quite “get it.”

I’m sure this has happened to you. You are reading something and you find yourself wondering: “What’s the author trying to say? What’s going on here?”

Not a good place for an author to land a reader.

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successful memoir interview

8 Tips: How to Have a Successful Memoir Interview

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A successful memoir interview will add depth to your memoir. While you know much about your story, it is always beneficial to gather information from other sources to fill in the gaps. These sources can be formal research on the net or in a library or it can be reviewing letters and journals or talking […]

pillars of a powerful memoir

Three Pillars of a Powerful Memoir

By

There is power in writing your story. Your memoir can transform you as it leads to understanding the energy in your life and ultimately making that energy work for you. The three pillars of a powerful memoir I want to talk about are the old stand-bys of character, action, and setting. A story is not […]

publish a book

Writing with passion! How to Bring Passion into Your Story

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Why is writing with passion so hard? Why does what you want to write become so difficult to do the moment you sit down to write a memoir? Where are the words you need to convey the excitement or the dread or the anticipation of your life experience? After writing a while, you are shocked […]