Her mother died while her father was posted to Rome and Woods was sent to a boarding school in Ireland.
A later job in Iraq[1] led to her to study Arabic and English at University College, Dublin.
[citation needed] Both with her family growing up and later after college, Woods travelled extensively before finally moving to live in Cork with her husband and their two daughters, where she was the director for the West Cork Literary Festival for four years.
[2] She has also been the resident tutor for the Country House Writers' Weekend[3] and writer-in-residence with Cork County Library.
[4] Denyse Woods won the Florida Keys Flash Fiction Contest in 2016.