Jen Ferguson | |
---|---|
Occupation | novelist, professor |
Language | English |
Nationality | Canadian, Métis |
Alma mater | University of South Dakota |
Genre | Young adult |
Years active | 2021–present |
Notable works | The Summer of Bitter and Sweet |
Notable awards | Governor's General Award, Stonewall Honor, 2022 Cybils Award |
Website | |
www |
Jen Ferguson is a Michif/ Métis Canadian writer, activist, and academic of young adult fiction. [1] She is best known for her Governor General's Award-winning and William C. Morris Award-nominated debut novel The Summer of Bitter and Sweet. [2]
Ferguson is of Michif/Métis and Canadian settler heritage and identifies as queer. [1] [3]
She considers herself an army brat and grew up moving around in Canada, spending a few years in Calgary, and then moving to Lloydminster, which she says was the first place where she witnessed anti-indigenous violence. [4]
The first book she remembers reading is Caroline B. Cooney’s The Face on The Milk Carton. [5]
Ferguson has a PhD in English and Creative Writing from the University of South Dakota. [1] [6] She is based in Los Angeles, California, [1] and teaches fiction writing at Coe College. [6] [7]
Her debut novel, The Summer of Bitter and Sweet, was published by Heartdrum in 2022.
The Summer of Bitter and Sweet won the Governor General's Award [2] and received starred reviews from Booklist, [8] BookPage, [5] Kirkus Reviews, [1] and School Library Journal.[ citation needed] It was also a finalist for the 2023 William C. Morris Award, [9] as well as a Stonewall Honor Book in Children’s and Young Adult Literature in 2023, [10] and the 2022 Cybils’ Award for Young Adult Literature. [11]
Her second novel, Those Pink Mountain Nights, is a sequel to her debut and was published by Heartdrum in 2023. [3] It is about an indigenous teen working her first job at an Alberta pizza shop and coming of age. [4] It explores the topic of missing and murdered indigenous women, mental health, and sexuality. [4]
It was inspired by her experience working in a pizza shop in the Canadian prairie when she was 16, a screenplay about a pizza shop she wrote in her early 20s, and the "ongoing human rights crisis happening in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico". [5]