MAINE — The Maine Franco-American Genealogical Society (MFGS) is pleased to have well-known local author Denis Ledoux as its guest speaker at its spring general membership meeting on April 27th at 10:00 am in the Androscoggin Community Room of the Auburn Public Library, 49 Spring St., Auburn.

Ledoux’s presentation will begin at approximately 11:00 am after a brief business meeting and light refreshments.  

Admission is free and open to the public.  

Ledoux’s latest memoir, French Boy/ A 1950’s Franco-American Childhood, was published this past fall and is the most recent  in his publications of family stories.  According to Ledoux, this memoir “explores what it means to grow up outside the dominant culture and language” and “is sure to provoke discussion and not always agreement.” He writes about the loss of the Franco history and culture, and includes much historical information that will help to explain Franco America to all who read it. Ledoux will expand on this topic and might even provide hints on writing memoirs to help us all document our history.

Ledoux holds a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Education. His biography also notes that he has taught Franco studies at the university level and that he has been a guest lecturer at numerous colleges and universities on the subjects of cultural diversity and Franco North American culture and history.

He directs The Memoir Network, an international group of life-writing teachers and writers.

Ledoux has won numerous awards for his work including the Maine Fiction Award for Mountain Dance & Other Stories in 1990.  His short fiction has twice been honored with the Maine Writing Fellowship Award (1991, 1996), an NEA-based merit award;  and also in 1996, Denis was named Life-Writing Professional of the Year by the Association of Personal Historians.

He is currently at work on three book projects: A sequel to French Boy; a story of his early Canadian ancestors. Here to Stay / A Slice of Franco-America in the Seventeenth Century; and Coming Down, a novel about a Canadien family immigrating to Maine in 1890.

 Denis Ledoux lives and works in Maine, just a mile from his boyhood home.

Denis Ledoux