Jessica Johns

Johns is a member of the Sucker Creek First Nation in northern Alberta.^[1] She grew up on her traditional territory in Treaty 8. She lived in Adelaide, Australia, from ages 14 to 16.^[2] Johns majored in English at Grant MacEwan University and has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia.^[3]

While she was an MFA student, a creative writing teacher told Johns' class to never write about dreams. Johns wrote Bad Cree in part as a response to this, advice which Johns disagreed with due to the importance of dreams in Cree culture.^[4] It was expanded from her earlier short story of the same name, which won the Journey Prize in 2020.^[5]

Bad Cree was published in 2023 by HarperCollins Canada.^[6] The novel won the MacEwan Book of the Year award, the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction, the ALA Alex Award, and was a shortlisted finalist for the 2023 Amazon.ca First Novel Award.^[7] Bad Cree was selected for the 2024 edition of Canada Reads, where it was defended by Dallas Soonias.^[8][9]