Will Ferguson

William Stener Ferguson (born October 12, 1964) is a Canadian travel writer and novelist best known for his humorous observations on Canadian history and culture.

For other people with the same name, see William Ferguson (disambiguation).
Will Ferguson
BornWilliam Stener Ferguson
(1964-10-12) October 12, 1964
Fort Vermilion, Alberta, Canada
OccupationWriter
NationalityCanadian
Alma materYork University
GenreHumour, travel, Canadian history and culture, fiction
Notable works419; Happiness™; Why I Hate Canadians; Hitching Rides with Buddha
Website
willferguson.ca

Ferguson was born fourth of six children in the former fur trading post of Fort Vermilion, Alberta, approximately 800 km north of Edmonton. His parents split up when he was six years old, during a brief interlude in Regina. At the age of 16, he quit school and moved to Saskatoon, Dauphin, and Red Deer.

Ferguson is also an outspoken critic of the monarchy of Canada, both publicly and in his books. He is quoted in the media when the monarchy issue is being debated.[1][2][3] He also profiles Canadian secessionist and independence movements (such as the "Republic of Madawaska") in his book Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw (2004).

Personal life

He completed his high school education at Lindsay Thurber Comprehensive High School (L.T.C.H.S.) in Red Deer, and was awarded the Alexander Rutherford Scholarships in all available categories. He then joined the Canadian government funded programs Katimavik and Canada World Youth. The latter program sent him to Ecuador in South America, as described in his book Why I Hate Canadians. He studied film production and screenwriting at York University in Toronto, graduating with a B.F.A. (Special Honours) in 1990.

He currently resides in Calgary, Alberta, with his wife and two sons. His older brother, Ian Ferguson, also won the Stephen Leacock Medal, for Village of the Small Houses in 2004. Another brother, Sean Ferguson, is currently the dean of music at McGill University.

Ferguson joined the JET Programme in the early 1990s, and lived in Kyushu, Japan for five years teaching English. He married Terumi in Kumamoto, Japan in 1995. After coming back from Japan he experienced a severe reverse culture shock, which became the basis for his first book Why I Hate Canadians. He details his experiences hitchhiking across Japan in Hokkaido Highway Blues, later retitled Hitching Rides with Buddha.

Awards and honours

Ferguson was a runner-up for the 1999 Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction for I Was a Teenage Katima Victim: A Canadian Odyssey.[4]

Ferguson has won the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour three times: first for Generica (later renamed Happiness) in 2002, then for Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw in 2005 and for his travel memoir Beyond Belfast in 2010.

Ferguson won the 2012 Giller Prize for 419: A Novel (2012).[5] The novel went on to win the 2013 Libris Award from the Canadian Booksellers Association for Fiction Book of the Year.

He also served on the jury of the 2015 Hilary Weston Prize for literary nonfiction.

Will Ferguson is on the Board of Directors of the Chawkers Foundation, which provides support for literary, artistic, environmental and educational projects. In 2016, he received an Honorary Degree in English from Mount Royal University.

Other activities

Ferguson championed Sarah Binks by Paul Hiebert in Canada Reads 2003.

Bibliography
  • Why I Hate Canadians (1997)
  • I Was a Teenage Katima-Victim! (1998)
  • Hokkaido Highway Blues (1998), republished in 2005 as Hitching Rides with Buddha
  • The Hitchhiker's Guide to Japan (1998)
  • Bastards and Boneheads: Canada's Glorious Leaders, Past and Present (1999)
  • Canadian History for Dummies (2000, revised 2005)
  • Generica (2001), winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, later republished as Happiness™
  • How to Be a Canadian (2001), cowritten with Ian Ferguson
  • Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw: Travels in Search of Canada (2004), winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour
  • The Penguin Anthology of Canadian Humour (editor) (2006)
  • Spanish Fly (2007) published in the UK as Hustle
  • Beyond Belfast: A 560-Mile Walk Across Northern Ireland on Sore Feet (2009), winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour
  • Coal Dust Kisses: A Christmas Memoir (2010)
  • Canadian Pie (2011)
  • 419 (2012), winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize
  • Road Trip Rwanda: A Journey into the New Heart of Africa (2015)
  • The Shoe on the Roof (2017)
  • The Finder (2020)

References
  1. St.John Telegraph-Journal - Jubilee tour sparks debate
  2. New Canadian Magazine - Royal Flush - Should we ditch the monarchy?
  3. Marsden, Rachel PoliticalUSA.com - Defining a Nation
  4. Wilfrid Laurier University 1999: Michael Poole, (retrieved 11/17/2012)
  5. Will Ferguson takes Giller Prize for novel 419 Archived 2012-12-27 at the Wayback Machine Toronto Star, October 30, 2012
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