by Peter Clarke
“On the very day he met Jenny, Sam’s penis fell off. For weeks, it had been hanging by a thread of rotting zombie flesh, but he hadn’t found the courage to yank it the rest of the way off.”
These were the first two sentences I ever read by Canadian fiction writer and poet Brianna Ferguson. It caught my attention, to say the least. Before I even finished the first page of this story, I sent it over to our fiction editor, Mark Dwyer, alerting him that we were going to publish this story.
Brianna often grabs the reader with something shocking or even unsettling. But it’s clear she’s not just writing for the sake of cheap shock value. Her stories include thoughtful passages, clever dialogue, practical examinations of life’s basic struggles—hallmarks of great fiction. It’s the combination of all these elements, plus the shock value, that makes Brianna such a pleasure to read.
Since publishing Zombie Mine in the summer 2017 issue of Jokes Review, we’ve published three other stories and one poetry collection by Brianna, making her our most frequent contributor.
To find out more about her unique style, here is our author interview with Brianna Ferguson:
PETER CLARKE: Your stories are always strange, unexpected, sometimes even a little unsettling. How would you describe your style? Do you associate your writing with any particular genre or movement?
BRIANNA FERGUSON: I generally start out with a “what if this happened to someone” kind of idea, and I’ll take it from there. Usually, my “what-ifs” are like “what if you suddenly had glass powers and that somehow tied into the inevitable, lonely death of the whole planet,” but yeah, usually it starts out with something like that and just sort of takes off.
I really like books like Warm Bodies where the whole zombie genre is kind of played with and moulded into a social commentary. I love when people take old monster stories and use them to say something about our society as a whole. I haven’t read much Asimov, but I’ve seen a lot of movies based on his work, where robots are used as a kind of modern Pinocchio to discuss what counts as a human life or a valuable life especially. That’s a big theme in a lot of my writing—people or humanoids being judged simply because of the bodies they were born into.
What writers have influenced you the most? If you could get coffee with any writer currently living, who would it be?
Some of the less-alive authors I absolutely love would be Virginia Woolf, JD Salinger, and Charles Bukowski. All three of them really opened my eyes to what was possible in poetry and prose.
I adore Miranda July and would happily get coffee with her any old day of the week. Same goes for Cat Cohen, Lionel Shriver, and Colin Barrett. We Need to Talk About Kevin has been my favourite novel for about a decade now, and I’ve read July’s The First Bad Man and No One Belongs Here More Than You so many times I’ve had to get replacement copies.
Do you remember the first story you wrote?
It was about a gal on a train who thinks she’s headed off to a spa for pregnant women, but she’s actually lost her mind after discovering she couldn’t have kids. It was my first foray into exploring through literature the fact that I myself can’t have kids. At the time I thought it was pretty mind-bending, but I think I’d die if it ever resurfaced long enough for a human being other than myself to read it.
Do you have any writing rituals?
I basically always have a coffee going, so definitely some writing and coffee overlap from time to time, but no. Pretty much I go for a walk, and as soon as I’m away from my computer or any sort of modern conveniences, I’ll get ideas and have to rush home and get them down. That’s pretty much the process. I have to be a little afraid I’m going to lose whatever little shred of creativity my brain decided to cough up. Fear’s a fabulous motivator for me.
It seems like a lot of writers grew up in small towns. You and I both have that in common. Do you think there’s anything about rural life that draws people to become writers? Are there any advantages to being a writer in a small town?
I think that any time the brain really gets to stagnate is good for creativity. I’ve worked a lot of boring office jobs where I just sat around all day, and my god, if boredom of that level doesn’t force the brain into new, creative places just to stay alive, nothing will.
It’s nice to have time to myself to write and to think my own thoughts, but no, I think I wrote the same amount no matter where I’ve lived. It’s not about the place, after all. Bukowski said something really great about how if you’re going to write, you’re going to write, no matter what. Too many people get too bent out of shape buying the right desk or sequestering themself in the right way, and it’s really not about that. It’s about being awake and alert and forming ideas and opinions and writing those ideas and opinions down whenever you can.
As a teacher, what are your thoughts on the next generation of readers and writers? Are kids still drawn to books, to the writer life?
I definitely had a handful of stand-out readers and writers in every class, but I couldn’t say how similar or different that is to other generations. There were definitely those few students whose eyes lit up whenever I started a new literary unit of some kind, and if they can hold onto that spark of excitement, we’re in good hands. But who knows. I’d barely started to consider writing when I was in high school. It was just something I did sometimes. Mostly I wanted to be an actress or a trophy wife.
What projects are you working on now?
I’m in grad school right now, and for my Master’s thesis I’m working on a novel about a high school student who finds out she’s intersex. I’m also finishing a poetry manuscript I’ve been working on for like five years, and another one I’ve been working on for about a month. The first one’s about nihilism and beer and trying to make sense of existence without a spiritual framework. The second one’s basically just endless confessions, which is super purgative and super fun. I haven’t had a book published yet, but then, I haven’t tried yet, so yeah, I’m hoping all three get out there in the world pretty soon.
Works by Brianna published in Jokes Review:
For more about Brianna, visit Briannaferguson.ca or follow her on Twitter @brianna_eff.
