Jessica Johns is a nehiyaw aunty with English-Irish ancestry and a member of Sucker Creek First Nation in Treaty 8 territory in Northern Alberta. She is an interdisciplinary artist and award-winning writer whose debut novel, Bad Cree, will be released in January 2023.
Her fiction, poetry, and nonfiction has been published in Cosmonauts Avenue, Glass Buffalo, CV2, SAD Magazine, Red Rising Magazine, Poetry is Dead, Bad Nudes, Grain, The Fiddlehead, Canadian Art, C Magazine, Brick, Reissue, Maisonneuve, The Globe and Mail, Best Canadian Essays 2019, among others. She has spoken at various literary and arts festivals such as WORD Vancouver, Vancouver Writers Fest, Room Literary and Arts Festival, FOLD Festival, Victoria Festival of Authors, London’s Literary and Creative Arts Festival, and Blue Metropolis.
Her visual art has been featured at the 2022 Rhubarb Festival, grunt gallery, and at Latitude 53.
She serves on the editorial board for GUTS – An Anti-Colonial Feminist Magazine, the advisory board for the Indigenous Brilliance reading series, and also brews kombucha as the founder of kokôm kombucha.
Praise for Bad Cree
“Both tactile and dreamy, terrifying and beautiful, Bad Cree will wrap you up and pull you along for the journey – once it starts, there’s no backing out, no pause, no stall.”
– Cherie Dimaline, author of The Marrow Thieves
“In evocative yet understated prose, Jessica Johns weaves a captivating tale of love, loss, the violence of greed and the healing power of family.”
– Michelle Good, author of Five Little Indians
“Wry, moody and subversive, Johns explores the power of connections, both the harm and the healing, with characters rich and warm, tangled in each other, to the land and to the supernatural.”
– Eden Robinson, author of the Trickster Trilogy
“Bad Cree deftly explores the permeable boundaries of dreams, reality, and culture, as well as complex family dynamics and relationships. A compelling novel that is a mystery and a horror story about grief, but one with defiant hope in its beating heart.”
– Paul Tremblay, author of The Pallbearers Club
“With creeps that are ever creepy and love flowing like beer at a bush party, Bad Cree is a book about the power of dreams, home and family. Full of Auntie power, Jessica Johns is really coming into her own immense storytelling ways.”
– Katherena Vermette, author of The Break
“The novel serves as a window into a world where dreams intersect with waking reality, and where that unseen dimension is as much a part of the life of a tight-knit family and community as bingo, jokes, and video games. It works equally well as spine-tingling thriller and a touching meditation on grief.”
– Publishers Weekly (Starred review)
“Visceral details will have readers hanging on the edge of every chapter… Johns is a writer to watch.”
– Booklist (Starred review)
“A powerful exploration of generational trauma and an artful, affecting debut.”
– Kirkus Review
Contact
General inquiries and media requests: jessicaSBjohns@gmail.com
Book-related inquiries: RLetofsky@cookemcdermid.com
Jessica Johns 