Jen

Jen Desmarais is the creator of the sex education game Blush and co-author of “Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers” and “Monsters! Incidental Wedding Guests.” “Crushing It” was her first solo novel.

Find her on Instagram @JenDesmaraisAuthor

You can also find a short story by Jen in “Nothing Without Us Too”, and a novella in “The Mystery of the Dancing Lights”.

Co-founder of JenEric Designs, she creates unique geeky crocheted items. Her blogs The Travelling TARDIS and How I Taught My Dragon have been nominated for the Prix Aurora Awards over 2018-2024.

She lives in Ottawa with her author husband, daughter, son, and their library of over 3000 books.

Find her pen name here! (Must be an adult)

Renaissance Press is closing

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What does that mean for JenEric Authors?

First, we’d like to take a moment to thank Renaissance Press for giving our books a home. Éric was one of the first authors signed with them; his first book released in 2016. Since then, he released a book a year. Jen’s first book released in 2022, but before that, she helped out with the metadata and behind-the-scenes data entry that comes with publishing a book.

The loss of Renaissance will be felt heavily in our household as well as across the Canadian landscape. We are losing a fantastic spec-fic press that elevated marginalized voices.

Renaissance Press will be missed.

What is happening with our books?

Well, that depends on the book.

Our series (serieses? seriesi?) have been picked up by publisher River City Siren Press!

We’re already published by them for a few of our books. We’re extremely excited to work with them for the rest of our series.

However, we don’t want to overwhelm them! We have a lot of books! We’ve discussed a slow-ish re-release schedule. Things may change, but for now, this is how things stand:

Everdome and Parasomnia will stay published under our imprint.

Faymous, The Copper Tarnish, and Connections! The Unexpected First Collection will stay with River City Siren Press (obviously!)

Now comes the slightly more complicated stuff.

The Elizabeth series is getting new covers! They will be released yearly over the next four years, starting with “A Study in Aether” very shortly. The goal is for Éric to finish writing books 5 & 6 in time to release them after the re-releases.

The Gates of Westmeath rights are returning to us as of June 15, 2026. There’s a 20% off sale going on right now to try to empty the warehouse of the excess stock. (https://alllitup.ca/book-list/renaissance-press-book-sale/) These covers will stay the same. The goal is to re-release these in time for book 3 to come out in Fall 2027. (Book 4 is not yet written – sorry!)

The Lucky in Love series is staying with Renaissance until the end of 2026. This is partially due to the fact that Crushing It has an audiobook coming out that was part of a CCA grant, and partially because Winging It has been nominated for an Aurora Award! They are included in the 20% off sale. (https://alllitup.ca/book-list/renaissance-press-book-sale/) These covers will not change. Ideally, I finish writing book 3 this year, and we can release the full series by the end of 2028. (Our daughter is a good motivator…)

We’re undecided about where Coffee Shop Between the ‘Verses is going after Renaissance closes at the end of the year, but until then, it is available through the warehouse sale, so get it for 20% off while you still can! (https://alllitup.ca/book-list/renaissance-press-book-sale/)

Keep up to date with us by:

Pictogram of the Tropes in “Faymous”

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Image showing the rating for the tropes in Faymous. Roadtrip explorations, Magical shenanigans, and Music are about 90%, Riddles are about 75%, and Kissing is about 40%. At the bottom, there’s a “Vibes”, which has an image from the movie The Princess Bride.
Faymous by Jen and Éric Desmarais
Cover art by Pinkpiggy93
eBook
Paperback

Shawna’s Google Search in Faymous

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If Shawna had access to Google during Faymous, these might be some of her search terms.

Character’s Google Search: “Shawna Peaceblossom in Faymous” in the search bar reveals the following six results: “neon orange fox name”, “what can I eat in Fay”, “how to play chess”, “types of salamanders”, “common riddles”, and “what’s a Fay lord”. Under that and the cover in ebook and physical book form reads: “Get it here: jeneric-designs.ca/UBL-Faymous“. The image of Shawna from the cover is off to the right.
Faymous by Jen and Éric Desmarais
Cover art by Pinkpiggy93
eBook
Paperback

Hockey Stick Make-over

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Have you seen the McDonald’s hockey sticks? They’re super cute, but I’m not a fan of hockey IRL, so I decided to give mine a little revamp!
Just print out the PDF on sticker paper, cut it out, and stick it to your box. If you REALLY want to get fancy, you can paint the sticks to match the player’s. Note that Shane’s stick has his mom’s name at the top!
Update: McDonald’s Canada on Instagram commented “hi yes so this is everything” and now my year is complete.

Image for printing – PDF

I’m not overly thrilled about the colour of yellow on Ilya’s stick, but highlighter didn’t work and I didn’t have a brighter nail polish. I used black, white, and yellow nail polish to redesign the sticks, and black fine sharpie to write Yuna’s name. The font for the character’s last name is grabbed from the jerseys up in the Heated Rivalry gift shop, as are the numbers. The logos for the teams are from the enamel pins in the same place. The MLH logo is from the video game (with Ilya’s “face on the cover of the fu€king game”). I removed the backgrounds in Photopea. The pictures are screen grabs. The signature is a font that I felt embodied the character, and I made the decision of how they would sign their names. Everything was dropped into Canva, and then I downloaded images that I made into a PDF to keep the size right.

No AI was used at any point of the process.

The original
The completed make-over

Note that I used nail polish for my painting because I don’t have paint and it didn’t occur to me to ask my sister if she had the colours I needed.

Randal’s Google Search in Faymous

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If Randal had access to Google during Faymous, these might be some of his search terms.

Character’s Google Search: “Randal Lake in Faymous” in the search bar reveals the following six results: “how to not offend a Fay”, “how long is a stadion”, “where is New Albion”, “what to feed a newt”, “Fi Follet myths”, and “meditation classes”. Under that and the cover in ebook and physical book form reads: “Get it here: jeneric-designs.ca/UBL-Faymous“. The image of Randal from the cover is off to the right.
Faymous by Jen and Éric Desmarais
Cover art by Pinkpiggy93
eBook
Paperback

Faymous Google Search

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If you were to search “Faymous” in Google, this is what might show up…

Not really, but these are related to the book!

Looking for a new read? “Faymous Jen and Éric Desmarais” in the search bar reveal the following six results: “young adult romance”, “shared hidden magical worlds”, “portal fantasy”, “music and riddles”, “roadtrip tropes”, and “magical shenanigans”. Under that and the cover in ebook form reads: “How good does this look? Get it here: jeneric-designs.ca/UBL-Faymous“
Faymous by Jen and Éric Desmarais
Cover art by Pinkpiggy93
eBook
Paperback

Aurora Awards 2026

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NASA#2007934

Dear Readers,

The Aurora Awards, which are for Canadian science fiction and fantasy writers and artists, are open for nominations for the 2025 works! (Nominations are open until April 5) This means the LONG lists of eligible works are being narrowed down to 5-6 per category.

Once they have a list of nominated works, every single person who signed up and paid the $10 membership fee gets ALL the nominated works as downloads. That’s all the adult novels, YA novels, novellas, short stories, graphic novels, and related works (usually anthologies), so about 36 works, for just $10 CAD, which is a great deal.

Getting nominated for an Aurora Award is a BIG DEAL in the speculative fiction writing community. You get a nomination pin (only once, so I’m terrified I’ll lose mine!), and you’re part of an elite group of people.

Nomination forms are not ranked.

How do you nominate?

  1. Go to this website: https://www.csffa.ca/members-home/
  2. Join, pay membership fee
  3. Nominate up to 5 works per category https://www.csffa.ca/members-home/nomination/

It would mean a lot to all of us if you’re willing to nominate us! (Categories are in alphabetical order by work)

  • Eligibility Category 2 – Best Young Adult Novel
    • The Copper Tarnish by Éric Desmarais
    • Winging It by Jen Desmarais
  • Eligibility Category 3 – Best Novelette/Novella
    • The Scarlet Thread Irregulars by Éric Desmarais
  • Eligibility Category 4 – Best Short Story
    • Harvest Special by Jen Desmarais
    • I am Snowman by Éric Desmarais
    • Plants, Fungus, and Zombies! by Éric Desmarais
    • Snow Day by Jen Desmarais
    • The Puzzles of Everdome by Éric Desmarais
    • The Summer of ’99 and How I Died by Éric Desmarais
  • Eligibility Category 6 – Best Poem/Song
    • The Ballad of the Phantom and the Wraith by Jen Desmarais, found in Winging It by Jen Desmarais
  • Eligibility Category 7 – Best Related Work
    • Connections! The Unexpected First Collection by Jen and Éric Desmarais
  • Eligibility Category 9 – Best Fan Writing/Publication
    • JenEric Movie Reviews by Éric Desmarais
    • The Travelling TARDIS by Jen Desmarais

In case you’re wondering why Winging It is not included in the best cover art category, it’s because our cover artist is Vietnamese! Only Canadian creators are eligible, unfortunately. We forgot to include The Copper Tarnish in this category because we’re not used to having art made by us! Éric did the cover for it.
Thank you so much for your time, attention, and support. If any of the above does make it through the nomination round, which ends April 5, we’ll write another post for the voting round, which will be taking place starting in June 2026.

Read safe!

Éric

Shadowbox: Faymous

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I got the idea to make shadowbox out of the cover image of our books, and I thought it would be fun for you to have access as well.

Template Download

Materials:
Paper (or cardstock)
Colour printer
Scissors
Exacto knife
Cutting board
Tape (or glue)
Patience

Instructions:

  1. Print the template provided (PDF download above)
  2. Cut out the pieces using scissors
  3. Cut out the greyed out background with the Exacto knife
  4. Tape (or glue) the parts together.

Note: I left some of the empty space on the ‘people’ level to help stabilize it. You can’t actually see it though, because it’s behind the bushes.

Faymous by Jen and Éric Desmarais
Cover art by Pinkpiggy93
eBook
Paperback

Going to game

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Hello Friends, Family, and Fans;

I promised my kids we’d do some TTRPG gaming this week. With everyone getting sick, we’ve had to push it back, but today is the day. (I still feel like crap but I’ll have lots of coffee.)

We’ll be playing FADDS (Four Attribute Dual Dodecahedron System) It’s my homemade system that is based off opposing rolls. I’ve slowly been retrofitting it to our books. I’m hoping to release the first version for Westmeath next year.

I sat down with the kids and built their characters, they seemed to follow fairly well. We even used Hero Forge to make them character portraits.

Dragon is Playing Maya, a descendant of Jason and Kennedy from The Gates of Westmeath
Pegasus is playing Rumi from Kpop Demon Hunters but with wings.
Jen is playing Carter from Lucky in Love.

The game will be set in the future of Everdome and have the characters exploring a lost temple from before the Cataclysm.

I hope they have fun. I feel a lot of pressure to make sure they enjoy themselves.

Wish me luck!

Éric

Amazon Everdome
Rakuten Kobo Everdome
Apple Books Everdome