Writer Interview: Jen Desmarais
Hello readers!
I’m here with our next interview, Jen Desmarais! She’s of the author variety, and I had so much fun talking with her about her books, the industry, and all manner of bookish things.
If you or someone you know would be a good fit for an interview with me, please point them to the sign-up post!
With that, let’s go!
Happy reading!
E
E: Hello, Jen!
It's so lovely to virtually meet you!
Obviously, I'm Eliza, a fellow author and the Chronicler of those in Alku. Thank you for taking the time to sit down with me over the next few weeks to discuss your books and words in general. Let's get into it!
Every book has a beginning, and every writer does as well. What was your personal beginning with books, Jen?
JD: I was born longer ago than I think, in Ottawa, Canada, to two great parents. I started writing on a very old (new at the time) Mac computer, with yellow text on a black screen, and printed out my stories on an old dot-matrix printer (it took four passes to print one line!) I wrote a lot during high school, but my mother hated that I never finished anything because she wanted to find out how it ended! Fortunately for her, when the pandemic hit, I started writing (and finishing!!) full-length novels, starting with "Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers," which I co-wrote with my amazing husband.
E: Wow, you started writing so young! I love that, I wish I had had that confidence at that age. Your mom sounds a bit like mine, and how she and I talk about my books. But you said you wrote a book with your husband — that sounds like so much fun!
What was the catalyst for you two writing together? Was he also a writer, or did you both decide you wanted to follow that path together?
JD: My mom is a huge supporter of my writing. She's actually really upset I won't let her read my pen name books. I'm like... 👀 It's a pen name for a reason, mother.
I actually forgot to mention how old I was on that old Mac - I was around 7-9 years old.
It wasn't that I was confident. I just wanted to write down my imaginings.
My husband is an author. His first book was published in 2016, and he has released a book each year since. The beginnings of the catalyst was a D&D game that we played in 2010. My character was so flirty and sassy, and she and his NPC, a mob boss, fell in love when she saved him from a stray bullet. However, it didn't occur to us to write them into a book until the pandemic (ten years later!). We were both home with the kids, and he broached the subject of writing a book with him. We started plotting, just to see how it went, and we got seriously excited about our ideas. (The MMC is no longer a mob boss, btw.)
My confidence was really shaky at first. I needed Éric (my husband) to read what I'd written every few paragraphs or so before I got control over the characters. He was so great about boosting me and helping me talk through how I wanted things to go.
We ended up writing that first book in two and a half months. (It's 100k words.) The rush of excitement from receiving immediate feedback from the other person was contagious (poor choice of word during a pandemic, but I couldn't think of a better one), and we have now written five books together so far, with plans for many more.
E: Your Mom sounds very similar to mine and SO wonderful! (I may or may not pull out sections when I send my books to my parents 😁)
The process and partnership you have with your husband and writing is enviable! I love that he helped you increase your confidence, and then you were able to flourish. That support system is incredibly important, and you're fortunate to have him by your side for this adventure.
I'm also a fellow D&D-er, but more often I’m the DM when my husband and I used to play. Although I once had a fantastic Bard named Devyn, who was very good at pretending she was a bush to get out of conflicts.
Tell me more about your books! What made you decide to shift the MMC from a mob boss to...what? That sounds like a big change, and I'm curious what made it important enough.
JD: I've considered pulling out sections, but my pen name is quite spicy, and it would be a complicated task. :P
Éric is an awesome DM. I have a lot of fun in his games.
Our books (the ones we wrote together) are Urban Fantasy Romance with superheroes (if I had to give a quick elevator pitch). The series is The Gates of Westmeath, it's going to be four books, and we have written the first three. "Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers" (https://www.jeneric-designs.ca/universal-book-links/#A!AM) and "Monsters! Incidental Wedding Guests" (https://www.jeneric-designs.ca/universal-book-links/#MIWG) are published by Renaissance Press and available to purchase wherever you can buy books. We recently submitted book 3, "Fanatics! Inevitable Honeymoon Crashers," to Renaissance and hope to hear good news within a couple of months after it goes through the acquisitions process. Related to the series is a collection of short stories that is currently on submission to River City Siren Press.
We didn't really want the whole mafia aspect to be a central part of the story (although there are gangs in our city of Westmeath), so a morally grey character was out. We did keep the general idea of being in charge, though. Our MMC is the leader of the magical Community of Aetherborn in Westmeath, approximately 20k people who live in an area called Oldtown. It's kinda like a king position (inherited), but with a board of directors because one person looking out for so many is too much. The position becomes elected during the course of the books, btw. Aetherborn are people created from human imagination and Aether (magic). Once they are in our world, they live like you and I, and can have offspring who are genetically Aetherborn, rather than magically. They can be Legolas lookalikes, centaurs, vampires, etc... anything sapient. If a human imagines something that is not sapient, it would be an Aether-creature, and quite dangerous. There are people who deal with those incursions... And I'm getting into world-building here. Back on track. Ahem.
It was much more important for our MMC to be a leader of this Community of Aetherborn than it was for him to be a mob boss, and it makes for a fun little Easter Egg when someone asks him if he is a mob boss in one of the short stories in the as yet unpublished collection. He is also the owner of a pizza place called The Hawaiian that is massively popular and located in the same building as the community centre for Oldtown.
I also have a spin-off series called Lucky in Love that is queer YA fantasy romance. The first book, "Crushing It"(https://www.jeneric-designs.ca/universal-book-links/#CI), is out now, and the second is coming out June 3: "Winging It"(https://www.jeneric-designs.ca/universal-book-links/#WI). I am currently writing the third (and last of the trilogy), called "Rocking It". I'm super excited about it. This series focuses on two teenagers finding love amidst competitions, impossible challenges, and terrifying encounters. It's a little bit sexy because my goal with their relationship is to showcase healthy communication and consent, which is something that I found lacking in my reading material in high school. It was either full abstinence or extremely uncomfortable red flags, and I would have loved to read about a couple like these two. Side note: it's definitely not to the point of my pen name material! I allow my mom to read this content!
E: I love me some incredible world-building! Both series sound like a lot of fun, and I really appreciate your mission for the YA romance ones with consent. I agree and recall a similar understanding from my younger days as well.
The Hawaiian had me belly laughing, I think that’s great, and now I want to know if the pineapple on pizza debate is constantly in progress? Oh, and your Easter egg of the mob in the short stories, my books are FILLED with stuff like that, and it’s honestly one of my favorite parts of writing and reading.
It sounds like you’ve got two pretty rad series ready to be wrapped up soon. Does that mean you have a new project you’re ready to dive into, or are you still contemplating where to go next?
JD: Both characters are of the mind that anything can go on pizza. It's possible that other characters disagree with them. I vaguely recall that happening.
We have dozens of Easter Eggs, from inside jokes that we've made with our kids (so nobody else would get) to hints at other books that Éric has written, since they're all in the same world (The Aetherverse).
Lucky in Love is 20 chapters away from being done, yes. The Gates of Westmeath still has 1 book to go, and I'm not sure when we're going to write that one. After I've completed Rocking It, and Éric's completed his project. If I finish first, my next goal is to write a Middle Grade series. I have 3 of the 4 characters in my head, and I've written a couple short stories with them, so I feel pretty comfortable with them. There's going to be 4 books in the series, and they'll be pretty quick reads, at only 20-30k words each. I'm really excited about them, even though I don't have a concrete plot yet. With Éric, once our series is complete, we have a sequel for one of our other books planned, set in Baker University with a group of first and second years who buy a haunted house to live in. It's got a bunch of characters that would be familiar to people who have read our books, and a couple new faces that I'm looking forward to getting to know. We also have a sci-fi planned that would expand on the aliens we've met in our books.
And that's not even branching out into what my pen name is working on!
Because right now, while I'm ghostwriting for a client and writing Rocking It, I'm also writing a spicy why choose space opera. I also have a gargoyle story that I'm dying to tell.
E: Mmm.... I love connected universe series.
Your backlog looks very similar to mine! There are so many stories to tell and characters to get to know. I love that you seamlessly transition between genres and target different age groups.
I know it's like picking your favorite child, but which series or book is your favorite and why? Do you have a favorite quote or trope from it that you'd like to share?
JD: I don't drift on purpose! Our universe just has a lot of people in it, and some of them require a different style of storytelling.
My favourite is the one I'm writing now. That's probably what every author says, but it's true. As much as I adore The Gates of Westmeath, I just finished writing that, and Lucky in Love characters have their hooks in my heart and my brain instead. So I'll focus on that, for the purposes of this question.
The main trope that it fits is "friends to lovers", I guess? It's an introduction to a hidden, magical world type of book. In the first book, we mostly see it in the human's POV, so you only get the hint that there's something else going on in the interludes, when it's from the love interest's POV. The second book kinda hits you over the head with the magical world, though - you're introduced to it in the first chapter and learn about it at the same time as the human POV. The second half of the book becomes a portal fantasy (is that another trope?) when they get pulled into Everdome (a world my husband created in the book with the same title). And then the third book, the human is comfortable in the magical world, and hopefully so too will be the readers.
I honestly can't think of a quote that is my favourite. A lot of vibes, a lot of scenes, but a quote? Too hard. lol
E: OOOooo, I have a soft spot for hidden magical worlds. My urban fantasy books are all connected with a "hidden world," no portals for me, though. ...well, yet?
I love that you split the events into different books! It must have been so much fun to write both the knowledgeable and the magic ignorant characters. Was one of them more fun or satisfying? Which one do you think you would be if there were magic in the world, the human or the magical one?
JD: The portal was extremely unexpected for everyone in the book, except for one background character. They're not particularly common.
To name the characters, because it's simpler: the human is Tommy, the magical is Carter. I liked writing Carter because he was so conflicted about not telling Tommy what was going on. He was asked not to tell because Tommy's sister was marrying the head of the magical community that Carter is a part of, and he wanted to be the one to tell Tommy in person. But it meant that Carter had to live with the secret for three months, which he wasn't too happy about. I ended up writing that first book mostly from Tommy's perspective because I didn't realize I was writing a book until it was too late, and then it would have been too difficult to add Carter's POV. Book 2 is dual POV, as is book 3. And I really loved being able to get into Carter's head after only getting little bits of it in book 1. They're both so different, challenging in different ways, and very fun to write. I look forward to writing both of them, but I think Carter is a tiny bit more fun, probably because Tommy is a bit more like me.
I think I would be a human. I'm not interesting enough to be magical (but then Carter would say that he's not very interesting either, despite the opposite being the truth).
E: Ha! Did the book sneak up on you? That’s how my first novel happened, too. I was writing a set of short stories, except the first one just kept going and going and going. Those little aspects and surprises within writing are some of my favorites.
You said Tommy is more like you. Do you write characters and scenes based on real-life situations and interactions?
I once had a marshmallow-fluff fight with my best friend, and it ended up in my ear (which, by the way, was not a pleasant experience). However, that experience is referenced in my first book as something the main character did with her brothers.
JD: It absolutely snuck up on me! That's the problem with writing on your phone - you only see a couple paragraphs at a time, and there isn't an easy "Word count" visible. I was writing at night while my son nursed to sleep, which took between an hour or two. After about a week or so of this, I just happened to do a word count and my jaw dropped. Apparently my husband was fully aware of what was happening the whole time and was waiting for me to notice, which I find hilarious.
Marshmallow-fluff in your ear sounds like a horrible experience - at least you got something out of it!! There are occasional scenes based off of real life situations within my books, but they're often twisted a bit to either fit the scene better or to add in magic. Or changed to what I wished could have happened! In Crushing It, there's a pool scene at a hotel during the science competition that is based off of a band trip that I took when I was in grade 12. We were playing Marco Polo, and I swam between a guy's legs and wasn't caught (tbh, he was probably so shocked that I'd done that, that he let me get away with it). In the book, I have the dating couple be the ones in the interaction, so the swimmer gets caught.
E: I love that your husband didn't say anything. That sounds like something mine would do to me, too. It sounds like you found some form of "flow state" during those quiet moments. That's beautiful, and I love hearing how authors with families, other jobs, and so on, find time to fit writing into their busy schedules.
What have you found to be the most rewarding part of writing so far? Those quiet stolen moments of writing, seeing your characters experience things you have, meeting readers, etc.?
JD: I should mention that he did try to suggest that I was writing a book, and I scoffed at the idea. I couldn't possibly write a book on my own without even having an outline! Oops?
I think the most rewarding part of writing is seeing my husband's reaction to my words. Having a spouse who loves your work and is eager to read whatever you've written and encourages you to write more is seriously the best boost of dopamine. Also, when we started writing together, we were talking about the book so much that our daughter (age 4 at the time) asked me to read what we'd been writing to her after each chapter was complete (great way to catch typos!). She listened to every word of the 100k book (even if the sex scene went over her head and made me grateful that I didn't use explicit words!) and even suggested ideas (of which we took a couple). My mother has read all the books both my husband and I have written (some of them more often than even I!), even if they're not yet published, and she is effusive with her excitement over them. So I guess, in a roundabout way, I could say that the readers are the most rewarding part of writing, even if the only ones I've truly interacted with are my family.
E: As someone who does not have a husband who can/will read my work, I’m so happy you have him, your daughter, and the rest of your family to experience this writing journey with!
Interacting with our readers is one of my favorite aspects of writing. For me, it’s the only reason I endure the publishing process. Have you, or are you planning, any in-person events or signings? 🙂 If you have, how did it go, and will you be doing more of them?
JD: I have done a few in-person events and signings, both at conventions and at bookstores. This summer, my husband and I are planning a joint book launch because both of us have new books coming out on June 3 from different publishers. Our joint book launch is happening on July 19, 1-3pm! It is in person, but there will be some hybrid aspects to it. There isn't a link to the event yet, but we will be posting it on our blog, so follow us there for updates! Then, in the fall, we'll be attending the Ottawa Comic Con (https://ottawacomiccon.com/), Readers Harvest in Brockville (https://readersharvest.ca/), and Can*Con in Ottawa (https://www.can-con.org/). Those are the only ones I know of at the moment, but we post on our blog (https://jeneric-designs.ca) if anything comes up last minute.
E: I adore the joint book launch! That’s so much fun, and I bet it helps to have a partner to balance some of the work with. Those are some rad events!
I love that you’ve got events on the horizon, but what about folks who may not be local or unable to afford attending events in person? What are ways they can find more about you and your stories? How can they support you without breaking the bank? Do you have an event calendar, newsletter, free samples, or stories that we can share?
JD: All our books are available either online or in bookstores (although the older ones might only be available via special order, not actually in stock at bookstores). You can find them through the universal book links on our website: https://www.jeneric-designs.ca/books-and-timeline/universal-book-links/ We also offer signed versions through our online store: https://coffeejeneric-designs.square.site/#qnkupv
We post 5 days a week on our blog www.jeneric-designs.ca about various things, and we have it set up so that you can get our blog posts in your email if you sign up for it. We also have a newsletter that we send out once a month. On our website, we have tons of bonus content for our books, and you can also find some short stories of our work in The Siren's Song, a free magazine released by River City Siren Press.
I know that books aren't the first priority for spending money in today's economy, but there are tons of ways to support authors that won't cost a penny. Requesting books at your library not only helps you to get your hands on the work you want to read, but in Canada, there's a program that financially compensates authors who have their books in libraries. Following authors and interacting with their posts on social media really gives them a boost, or at least it does for me. Sometimes social media feels like screaming into a void, and it's both exhausting and depressing. Having someone reply is so much fun! Sharing our posts helps, too, to get a wider reach. If you have read a book, writing a review and recommending it to a friend is a massive help.
E: I love how much you have going on, and I’m totally checking out that bonus content you’ve got! How fun!
We’ve talked a lot about your books and writing now, so I'd like to switch gears a bit. Tell me about your covers. Inspiration, your artist’s information, etc. What’s your cover creation process?
JD: Covers! Yes!! When we wrote the first book (Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers), we obviously didn't have a contract or publisher yet, so I didn't have an official idea of what I wanted as a cover. But while we were talking about the things that were happening in the book, we both agreed instantly that a scene from chapter 7 had to be the cover. As for the artist, I had been following pinkpiggy (as she prefers to go by when referring to her as an artist) for two years (at the time of writing the first book). I absolutely adore her watercolour-esque digital painting style (I'm sure there's an actual art name for it), and I tentatively reached out to her for a cover commission. She accepted, and I've been working with her ever since! She's done every single one of my covers, including my pen name, and bonus commissions like a Mother's Day present. We just recently hired her again to redesign one of Éric's book covers that he got the rights back to, and we re-released that at the end of April 2025.
The process we go through (generally) is I give pinkpiggy a description of everything. The look of the characters (including photo inspiration), the clothing they're wearing, their emotions at the time, the genre of the book, the weather in the scene, the background idea... In as much detail as I can think of, especially if I have a specific vision for how I want it to look. I often also include a snippet of the scene, if there is one. Then she comes back to me with a sketch (no colour). Then we go back and forth on the fiddly little details until I'm happy with everything. Then she adds the colour and completely blows my mind.
Needless to say, I adore working with her. She's brilliant!
E: On my! That art is spectacular! I see why you wanted to work with them and continue to do so. Being able to see the rough sketches makes my artist heart happy, and I’m sure others will be tickled by that too!
I have had so much fun talking with you, and I look forward to your next book's release and continuing to follow your (and your husband’s) careers in the future. You’ve found a fan, cheerleader, and supporter from me, and I’m so honored to have been able to steal a bit of your precious time to talk words with you.
JD: Thank you so much for doing this interview.
"Winging It" is a queer YA portal fantasy romance.
A wedding and a summer camp that Tommy and Carter are never going to forget.
The only way they, and their relationship, can survive is if they start Winging It!
Cover artist: @pinkpiggy93
Publisher: @renaissancebookpress
Universal book link: https://www.jeneric-designs.ca/UBL-WingingIt
Instagram/tiktok/Bluesky: @JenDesmaraisAuthor
Tumblr: @edhelwen1
Blog: https://www.jeneric-designs.ca/
