| Interview with Jean Ferris |
First off, thanks so much for joining us for an up-close and personal interview for TeensReadToo.com!
My name is Jen, and I’ll be your server toda…oh, wait, wrong job! Anyway, thanks so much for taking time
out of your writing schedule—which I’m sure is busy!—and answering a few questions for your readers
and fans.
Let’s get some of the typical interview questions out of the way first. When did you first know that you
wanted to be a writer?
I wrote my first book when I was seven, so I guess I’ve always been a writer. I just wasn’t willing to call
myself one until I’d published three or four books. Somehow I thought REAL writers were somebody else—
smarter, better-read, more prolific, something other than what I was. Now I know writers come in all
shapes and sizes and abilities.
Can you tell us a little bit about your road to publishing?
Once I decided to try to publish something (in my 30s!) I just decided to write a lot, submit a lot and give
myself five years to see what happened. I sold my first book about six months before the end of the five
years. I submitted to multiple publishers without an agent, sending a couple of sample chapters and a
query letter. Several publishers asked to see the whole manuscript and two offered me a contract. I’m
still with my first publisher, more than 20 years later.
Tell us a little bit about either your latest or upcoming release. If you could only tell your readers one
thing about the story that had to convince us to buy the book, what would it be?
My upcoming release will be fall ’06 from Harcourt. It’s called MUCH ADO ABOUT GRUBSTAKE, set in a
little western mining town in the late 1800s. Find out how a man dressed all in black, with a scar on his
cheek, helps a young girl protect a whole town of down-and-out miners from an unscrupulous tycoon.
What, or who, has been the greatest inspiration for your stories?
I have to say that no single person or thing has been my inspiration. Mostly I’m inspired by things I
observe, overhear, read about, or am told about.
Let’s hear about your family, who I’m sure are thrilled to have a published author among them!
I don’t know how thrilled they are! My husband is a lawyer, one daughter is a college professor
(sociology) who is writing her own textbook, so she knows how hard writing is. My other daughter is a
reporter for Arizona Public Radio. She also writes her own copy, and intends to write a novel someday. It
seems that writing runs in the family.
Now for some fun facts. What’s your greatest comfort food?
Ice cream. Peanut butter (only chunky). And, of course, chocolate—but only milk, not dark.
What are the first three things you do when you wake up in the morning?
Brush teeth, put on sweats, go to the gym. If I don’t do it first, I never get around to it. And writing
requires a lot of sitting, so that hour on the treadmill really matters!
If I came to your house and looked in your closet/attic/basement, what’s the one thing that would surprise
me the most?
How many boxes of old manuscript material I have! I keep meaning to donate them to some archive or
other, but never find the time. Also, the work involved intimidates me!
Everyone asks the question about “if you could be a tree, which tree would you be?” so I want to know: If
you could be a color, which color would it be, and why?
Red. It means energy, happiness, passion.
Who is your favorite cartoon character? Which cartoon character is most like you?
These are hard questions! My favorite cartoon is For Better or Worse—a Canadian strip. I identify with
Ellie, the mother, who juggles family and work, worries about getting old, helps an aging parent, and
keeps working on her marriage—all things I’m working on, too.
If you could beam yourself to anywhere in the world (“Beam me up, Scotty!"), during any time in history,
where and when would it be—and why?
I’m not interested in living in any time or place in history other than here and now. Too many
inconveniences—I’m pretty attached to indoor plumbing, electricity and civil rights. However, I wouldn’t
mind having a peek at America at the time of our war for independence—the big ideas that were in the air,
and the extraordinary people who were living then. It must have been an exciting, scary, challenging time.
So what’s your favorite type of music to listen to? Favorite musical artists? Do you listen to music while
you’re writing?
I’m afraid I have a tin ear and don’t listen to much music—and especially not when I’m writing. I find it very
distracting. Silence is my sound of choice when writing. I don’t like jazz at all but I do like to listen to opera.
Do you have any favorite T.V. shows? Movies you watch over and over again? What was the last movie
you saw at the theater?
Last movie I saw in a theater was EIGHT BELOW. Movies I watch over and over again are GONE WITH
THE WIND, LAST OF THE MOHICANS, and CASABLANCA. Favorite TV shows: CSI, Sopranos, Medium
and What Not To Wear! I also love reruns of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER.
You have the chance to give one piece of advice to your teen readers. What would it be?
Keep reading. It will give you a lifetime of pleasure—and I believe you can learn almost anything from a
book. It also gives you a chance to experience things you wouldn’t really want to live through.
One last question. What stories can we look forward to from you in the future?
At the moment I’m working on a sequel to ONCE UPON A MARIGOLD—something I never thought I’d do.
I’ve never written a sequel before, but I don’t seem to be finished with these characters. Next year I’ll have
a book from Farrar, Straus and Giroux about the underground railroad before the Civil War—and a slave
who was a guide in Mammoth Cave. I have a couple of other book ideas stewing, too, but I’m reluctant to
talk about them while they’re still so unformed.
Again, thanks so much for joining us at TeensReadToo.com!
My name is Jen, and I’ll be your server toda…oh, wait, wrong job! Anyway, thanks so much for taking time
out of your writing schedule—which I’m sure is busy!—and answering a few questions for your readers
and fans.
Let’s get some of the typical interview questions out of the way first. When did you first know that you
wanted to be a writer?
I wrote my first book when I was seven, so I guess I’ve always been a writer. I just wasn’t willing to call
myself one until I’d published three or four books. Somehow I thought REAL writers were somebody else—
smarter, better-read, more prolific, something other than what I was. Now I know writers come in all
shapes and sizes and abilities.
Can you tell us a little bit about your road to publishing?
Once I decided to try to publish something (in my 30s!) I just decided to write a lot, submit a lot and give
myself five years to see what happened. I sold my first book about six months before the end of the five
years. I submitted to multiple publishers without an agent, sending a couple of sample chapters and a
query letter. Several publishers asked to see the whole manuscript and two offered me a contract. I’m
still with my first publisher, more than 20 years later.
Tell us a little bit about either your latest or upcoming release. If you could only tell your readers one
thing about the story that had to convince us to buy the book, what would it be?
My upcoming release will be fall ’06 from Harcourt. It’s called MUCH ADO ABOUT GRUBSTAKE, set in a
little western mining town in the late 1800s. Find out how a man dressed all in black, with a scar on his
cheek, helps a young girl protect a whole town of down-and-out miners from an unscrupulous tycoon.
What, or who, has been the greatest inspiration for your stories?
I have to say that no single person or thing has been my inspiration. Mostly I’m inspired by things I
observe, overhear, read about, or am told about.
Let’s hear about your family, who I’m sure are thrilled to have a published author among them!
I don’t know how thrilled they are! My husband is a lawyer, one daughter is a college professor
(sociology) who is writing her own textbook, so she knows how hard writing is. My other daughter is a
reporter for Arizona Public Radio. She also writes her own copy, and intends to write a novel someday. It
seems that writing runs in the family.
Now for some fun facts. What’s your greatest comfort food?
Ice cream. Peanut butter (only chunky). And, of course, chocolate—but only milk, not dark.
What are the first three things you do when you wake up in the morning?
Brush teeth, put on sweats, go to the gym. If I don’t do it first, I never get around to it. And writing
requires a lot of sitting, so that hour on the treadmill really matters!
If I came to your house and looked in your closet/attic/basement, what’s the one thing that would surprise
me the most?
How many boxes of old manuscript material I have! I keep meaning to donate them to some archive or
other, but never find the time. Also, the work involved intimidates me!
Everyone asks the question about “if you could be a tree, which tree would you be?” so I want to know: If
you could be a color, which color would it be, and why?
Red. It means energy, happiness, passion.
Who is your favorite cartoon character? Which cartoon character is most like you?
These are hard questions! My favorite cartoon is For Better or Worse—a Canadian strip. I identify with
Ellie, the mother, who juggles family and work, worries about getting old, helps an aging parent, and
keeps working on her marriage—all things I’m working on, too.
If you could beam yourself to anywhere in the world (“Beam me up, Scotty!"), during any time in history,
where and when would it be—and why?
I’m not interested in living in any time or place in history other than here and now. Too many
inconveniences—I’m pretty attached to indoor plumbing, electricity and civil rights. However, I wouldn’t
mind having a peek at America at the time of our war for independence—the big ideas that were in the air,
and the extraordinary people who were living then. It must have been an exciting, scary, challenging time.
So what’s your favorite type of music to listen to? Favorite musical artists? Do you listen to music while
you’re writing?
I’m afraid I have a tin ear and don’t listen to much music—and especially not when I’m writing. I find it very
distracting. Silence is my sound of choice when writing. I don’t like jazz at all but I do like to listen to opera.
Do you have any favorite T.V. shows? Movies you watch over and over again? What was the last movie
you saw at the theater?
Last movie I saw in a theater was EIGHT BELOW. Movies I watch over and over again are GONE WITH
THE WIND, LAST OF THE MOHICANS, and CASABLANCA. Favorite TV shows: CSI, Sopranos, Medium
and What Not To Wear! I also love reruns of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER.
You have the chance to give one piece of advice to your teen readers. What would it be?
Keep reading. It will give you a lifetime of pleasure—and I believe you can learn almost anything from a
book. It also gives you a chance to experience things you wouldn’t really want to live through.
One last question. What stories can we look forward to from you in the future?
At the moment I’m working on a sequel to ONCE UPON A MARIGOLD—something I never thought I’d do.
I’ve never written a sequel before, but I don’t seem to be finished with these characters. Next year I’ll have
a book from Farrar, Straus and Giroux about the underground railroad before the Civil War—and a slave
who was a guide in Mammoth Cave. I have a couple of other book ideas stewing, too, but I’m reluctant to
talk about them while they’re still so unformed.
Again, thanks so much for joining us at TeensReadToo.com!
