He’s authored or co-authored seven books in less than four years, with another set for release this spring and another still planned for fall. But that doesn’t mean Will Ferguson has gotten used to the publishing process. “I think it’s an ordeal, an awful ordeal,” says the 36-year-old Calgary-based writer. “And I know I’m a tough writer to work with – I’m sure lots of editors have Will Ferguson horror stories. But I make no apologies for that.”


At least those experiences provided a ready-made backdrop for Ferguson’s first novel, which Penguin Canada will publish in April. “Generica is in many ways taking the piss out of publishing,” says the author. Set in a monolithic publishing house, the novel centres on a mysterious self-help manuscript, “What I Learned on the Mountain,” which a weary editor plucks randomly from the slush pile. Published with no marketing support, “Mountain” rides word of mouth praise to become a full-scale phenomenon. But as a self-help manual, it works a little too well, transforming an entire populace into happy, fulfilled zombies.

Generica was inspired, says Ferguson, by an offhand comment from Terrilee Bulger, a publicist with the sales agency Hornblower Books. “She said that if anyone wrote a self-help book that ever worked, we’d all be in trouble.” Struck by that premise, Ferguson worked on the novel as a “secret project” for more than two years.

Of course, he was busy with other ventures, too. Over the past three-plus years, Ferguson has carved out a career as a Canadian commentator and popularizer of history, with humour titles like Why I Hate Canadians, surveys like Bastards and Boneheads (a ranking of Canada’s prime ministers), and, most recently, his own entry in the Dummies series, Canadian History for Dummies. “I’m always surprised at how little other writers write,” says Ferguson nonchalantly.

At first, he just wanted to write travel guides. After spending five years in Japan in the early 1990s, Ferguson sold The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Japan to Tuttle Publishing in the U.S., and also placed a travel narrative, Hokkaido Highway Blues: Hitchhiking Japan, with Soho Press. But the appeal of travel guides waned (“it’s all the toughest parts of non-fiction, but with none of the reward”), and a fascination with Canadian history and culture emerged. Says Carolyn Swayze, Ferguson’s B.C.-based agent: “He’s such a hardworking author – when he came back from Japan he decided he was going to stay in Canada and be an author of books, and he’s just soldiered on doing that.”

Swayze came on board with Why I Hate Canadians, and has represented Ferguson since then. These days publishers come to them: CDG pitched the author on the Dummies guide, and Penguin Canada originally offered Ferguson a non-fiction project before buying Generica too. For his part, Ferguson says: “Everyone usually criticizes agents, but I think a good agent is a godsend to a writer.”

That may be why agenting is more or less unscathed in Generica, which flings barbs at editors (overworked and cynical), authors (murderous), publicists (impossibly perky), and execs (lazy and vain). “I think Will has based it on situations more than on specific characters,” says Penguin editor Michael Schellenberg. But he and Ferguson also took care to avoid an in-joke feel: the author had originally planned to call Generica “It Came from the Slush Pile,” but the term was thought to be too specific to the industry.

To promote the novel, Ferguson will tour Canada with three other Penguin authors, in the company’s “Pure Fiction” campaign. And not surprisingly, he’s already busy with future projects, too, including another humour title for Douglas & McIntyre. How to Be a Canadian, to be written with brother Ian (who works with the Second City comedy troupe in Toronto), is scheduled for fall 2001 publication.

Penguin also has an option on another Ferguson novel, and on a non-fiction title – but details on the latter are not forthcoming. “I think I’m taking a big break from history,” says Ferguson. “I’m exhausted. I don’t have any research assistants.” As for fiction? “It was a lot of fun. Creatively, it was very tough, but the lack of research was wonderful.”

But while his appetite may have been whetted, Ferguson has little taste – as a writer or a reader – for self-consciously literary fiction. “I don’t come from a la-di-da, let’s stroke my chin and muse about the world school of writing. A lot of writers just assume the reader will stick with them…. If you want to be a writer, you write books that people want to read.”