Jen Ferguson is Michif/Métis and white, an activist, an intersectional feminist, an auntie, and an accomplice armed with a PhD in English and creative writing. Her debut novel The Summer of Bitter and Sweet was the winner of the Governor General’s Award, a Stonewall Award honor, and a Morris Award finalist. Her sophomore novel Those Pink Mountain Nights received three starred reviews and was a Kirkus best book of the year.

I had the opportunity to interview Jen, which you can read below.

First of all, welcome back to Geeks OUT! For readers who are not as familiar with you, could you tell us a little about yourself?

Thanks for having me back! I love it here.

I’m a YA author, an activist, an auntie and a proud geek. I’m mostly a word nerd—love a good pun—but I’m also fascinated about our world, our universe and love learning new things.

You may have heard of my other books, The Summer of Bitter and Sweet or Those Pink Mountain Nights. If you haven’t, well, now you know!

What can you tell us about your latest book, A Constellation of Minor Bears? What was your inspiration for this project?

I have always wanted to go on a long through-hike. This was one of my dreams—to spend a summer hiking the Appalachian Trail or even to hike and canoe sections of the Trans Canada Trail.

But a long hike takes 4-5 months and costs a lot of money.

After living in Los Angeles for three years for my day job, I discovered the Pacific Crest Trail was sort of in my backyard. So I spent weekends exploring sections of that trail in and around Big Bear, California.

A long hike never quite happened for me. But I got to write about it! That’s one of the joys of fiction—with books, we can travel the universe in our pjs.

As a writer, what drew you to the art of storytelling, especially young adult fiction?

I didn’t start out writing YA. I am a reformed adult literary fiction writer.

It’s a long story but imagine me, the summer I graduated with a PhD in English and Creative Writing, where I had no job prospects and had to move back into my parents’ basement.

It wasn’t pretty.

I was having a real hard time with books and writing. The things that used to make me happy, weren’t making me happy anymore. They were actually stressing me out a lot.

But then I discovered the amazing, exciting YA books published during the YA renaissance in 2015/2016 in my local library—and that rekindled the storytelling flame in my heart. I sort of haven’t looked back since.

How would you describe your writing process? In what ways has it changed or stayed the same since the beginning of your writing journey?

I am a binge writer. I can not write for a long time and then write a lot in a short period of time.

That’s my ideal.

But publishing isn’t ideal. These days, I’m writing a book, while promoting a book, while revising a book, while still doing events for my first YA novel—The Summer of Bitter and Sweet—which came out in May 2022.

Now, my process is mostly do what you can, when you can, however you can.

As a writer, who or what would you say are some of your greatest creative influences and/or sources of inspiration in general? 

The world, the universe, scientific discoveries, the unrest around us, the injustice around us, other stories—in as many different forms of media as possible—activist movements, Native artists and storytellers, my students, every single teenager living in this world right now, flowers and trees and bugs and rocks and molds and fungi.

Really, mold and fungi are pretty much the coolest slash scariest things ever.

(Related to my last point: please read T. Kingfisher’s novella What Moves The Dead).

What are some of your favorite elements of writing? What do you consider some of the most frustrating and/or difficult? 

I am a revision girlie. I adore revision.

Drafting? Nothankyou.

Except I haven’t figure out how to revise a book I haven’t drafted yet. Once I do that, I’ll be unstoppable!

Aside from your work, what are some things you would want others to know about you?

I love to travel—truly, it’s the thing that makes me feel most alive and most happy. My next trip is this summer. I’m taking my oldest nephew to Japan.

I just invited a new puppy into my life. He’s a borzoi. His name is Bram, like Bram Stoker. But his nicknames are Bramble, Bramarama and Brambroski. Somewhere out there he has his own Insta account.

I’m a late-in-life plus-size femme fashionista. Show me a gorgeous dress made for a fat girl or femme and I’m going to find out how I can have that dress in my life.

What’s a question you haven’t been asked yet but that you wish you were asked (as well as the answer to that question)?

This is a really hard question. And I’m going to cheat, since just this week a Grade 9 student asked me the question I’ve been wanting to be asked: What’s the best meal you’ve had in your life?

The best meal I’ve had in my life was from a little vegetarian restaurant in Banff National Park. It was what I affectionately call “kitchen sink nachos.” Yes, there were green peppers and olives and jalapenos, but there were also like 25 other ingredients on these things include strawberries and blueberries and pickles and nuts and other glorious toppings. De-freaking-lish!

What advice might you have to give for aspiring writers?

Don’t call yourself an “aspiring” writer. If you write, you’re a writer, full stop.

Are there any other projects you are working on and at liberty to speak about?

I’m working on another YA book for Heartdrum—this one is set in Chamonix, France in the alps. It’s my two queer girls maybe kissing book and I’m having so much fun writing it.

Finally, what books/authors would you recommend to the readers of Geeks OUT? 

I’ve been reading a lot of adult queer fiction lately, so that’s what you’re getting.

Edward Underhill’s adult debut, The In-Between Bookstore. Trans man goes back in time to his pre-transition teenaged self by way of a bookstore. People I trust have called this one “brilliant.” It’s next on my TBR list.

Christina Cooke’s Broughtupsy. A queer Jamaican woman returns to Jamaica, scattering her brother’s ashes across the country—sometimes, lol, in odd places. This one hit me so hard in the feels. I cried.

Sydney Hegele’s Bird Suit. It’s this weirdly-awesome mashup of a small town 20-something sleeping with a priest and his wife, making friends with the priest’s son, and also, there are the Birds—creatures of town myth who take care of unwanted babies. I’m not doing this book justice. I’m just not. It’s very queer and very great.