Today we are very excited to share an interview with Author Jen Ferguson (A Constellation of Minor Bears)!
Meet the Author: Jen Ferguson
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. Visit her online at jenfergusonwrites.com.
About the Book: A Constellation of Minor Bears
Award-winning author Jen Ferguson has written a powerful story about teens grappling with balancing resentment with enduring friendship—and how to move forward with a life that’s not what they’d imagined.
Before that awful Saturday, Molly used to be inseparable from her brother, Hank, and his best friend, Tray. The indoor climbing accident that left Hank with a traumatic brain injury filled Molly with anger.
While she knows the accident wasn’t Tray’s fault, she will never forgive him for being there and failing to stop the damage. But she can’t forgive herself for not being there either.
Determined to go on the trio’s postgraduation hike of the Pacific Crest Trail, even without Hank, Molly packs her bag. But when her parents put Tray in charge of looking out for her, she is stuck backpacking with the person who incites her easy anger.
Despite all her planning, the trail she’ll walk has a few more twists and turns ahead. . . .
Discover the evocative storytelling and emotion from the author of The Summer of Bitter and Sweet, which was the winner of the Governor General’s Award, a Stonewall Award honor book, and a Morris Award finalist, as well as Those Pink Mountain Nights, a Kirkus Best Book of the Year!
~Author Chat~
YABC: What gave you the inspiration to write this book?
I absolutely knew I wanted to write a book about going on a very long hike.
These are the kinds of adventures I was having as a teenager and in my early 20s, although I mostly did extended canoe trips. I’d always dreamed of hiking the Appalachian Trail (AT). For fun, I read book after book about long hikes: Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods and Cheryl Strayed’s Wild to name only two.
After living in Los Angeles, I fell in love with the desert and realized the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) was in my back yard. In some ways, that was that.
YABC: What came first, the concept, landscape, characters, or something else?
Oh, the characters always come first for me. But to throw a wrench in things, setting is often a character in my books too.
I knew Molly was a fat adventurer and I knew she was deeply angry. I knew Tray was head-over-heels for Molly but that he’d never been brave enough to tell her. I knew Molly’s half-brother Hank was going through a really hard time after falling 30-feet during an indoor climbing accident—and I knew that when these three finally made it to the PCT, they would meet another fat hiker, Brynn, and Brynn would be running away from something terrible.
YABC: Who is your favorite character in the book?
Aunt Sheila.
YABC: What scene in the book are you most proud of, and why?
Do you know how hard it is to write compellingly about walking all day? It’s really hard. So when I was stumped in revisions, I had this moment, where I knew exactly what I needed to do to fix a major problem I was having. They’re Hank’s AITA scenes and frankly they’re kinda brilliant.
YABC: What can readers expect to find in your books?
Messy queer teens, messy BIPOC teens, messy disabled teens, found family, usually really delicious food descriptions, often some feels.
Okay, a lot of feels.
When people tell me they’ve read one of my books, I’ve started asking if they need a hug.
YABC: What is your favorite snack when writing?
I don’t really snack and write. I do hydrate and write. A large unsweetened iced tea with a whole lemon squeezed in is my go-to.
YABC: What’s your least favorite word or expression and why?
Other writers will hate me for this one. But it’s “book of my heart”. The phrase is so overused that it doesn’t mean anything anymore.
That’s something that bums me out about language. Sometimes we start saying something so often—here’s another example: spicy—and suddenly everything is spicy, and therefore nothing is, everything is the book of your heart, and nothing is.
Can you tell I’m a nerd and also a bit a grump?
YABC: What do you do when you procrastinate?
Clean the house.
YABC: What’s up next for you?
I’m working on a YA novel for Heartdrum set in Chamonix, which is part of the French alps, and the location of the first ever Winter Olympics. It’s a book about sisters and about if you can ever really know another human person. In fact, throughout most of the novel sixteen-year-old indoor kid Tatum Nova is wondering what exactly it means to be a human person anyhow. When Tatum Nova visits Chamonix to convince her restauranteur father to return home to Toronto, her visit opens up a grief she thought she was done grieving as she finds herself immersed in the places and around the people who knew her much older sister better than she did. It’s also a queer love story, where Tatum Nova meets Agatha, a ski jumping Olympic hopeful, and immediately starts wondering: how a human person can tell if the cute ski jumping athlete is gay?
I don’t know when it comes out. I’m still drafting the thing. Wish me luck!
Title: A Constellation of Minor Bears
Author: Jen Ferguson
Release Date: 9/24/24
Publisher: Heartdrum
Genre: YA
Age Range: 13-17
