I was a writer before I ever began publishing. Here’s a list of what I’ve done.
Recent writing
Obituary of K M Peyton, Children’s Book History Society, 2024
Happy Horsidays recommended reading: an interview with Jane Badger, HippoCampus (journal of the Equine History Collective), Winter 2023, email interview; questions by Miriam A Bibby
Playing chicken: the early history and modern revival of an ancient game, co-authored with Dr Timothy Dawson, Historical Practices in Horsemanship and Equestrian Sports, Trivent, Budapest, 2022.
Black Beauty, IBBYlink, Summer, 2021
My books
Heroines on Horseback: everything you want to know about the pony book in its glory days.
Heroines on Horseback came about because I wrote this website. The publisher, Girls Gone By, as well as republishing books, also commissioned non fiction on classic children’s literature, and they asked me to write a book on pony books and their history. I was very honoured to be asked, and had fond thoughts that the whole process would take me about a year. It took me years, and a very, very, very patient editor – the wonderful Tig Thomas.
One thing with writing a blog is that to a very large extent, you’re writing what you want. Writing a book was a completely different experience. I had to take what I knew and put it over in a format that was reasonably intelligent as well as accessible.
I almost gave up entirely when my chapter on Patricia Leitch, which I’d just finished revising and of which I was quietly proud, was eaten by my temperamental computer. The chapter was re-written but it was never quite as good and it remains one of these things that makes me quietly cry inside.
Heroines has had pretty good reviews, and I am glad that people continue to enjoy it.
It’s available as an eBook on my publishing website and via the usual sites.
Ruby Ferguson and the Jill Books: a look at Ruby Ferguson and her books, packed with info on the books, the characters and the controversies. Currently unavailable while I update it.
Jill and the Lost Ponies
There used to be a forum attached to my old website, and we would do things like start off a story and people would take it in turns to contribute a sentence/paragraph. That’s how Jill and the Lost Ponies started.
I am not a keen writer of fiction at all, but I did enjoy writing this story of Jill and Ann’s next step, with immediate feedback whenever I posted a new episode. It was so helpful to see what people wanted from the story, and to be brought back to heel if I went off on a more than usually dizzy excursion into fantasy.
Like so many fans of the Jill book, I had always found the awful fate foisted on Jill and Ann at the end of Pony Jobs for Jill difficult. When I first read it, I couldn’t believe it. How could this be? How could Jill, my heroine, the girl who didn’t conform, who went her own way, go off and do a secretarial course? I think if she’d always meant to study things secretarial, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but she wanted to work with horses. Or be the matron of a jolly orphanage. Or an MFH. Jill was even offered a job by Captain Cholly-Sawcutt (who changed horses, the rat).
I have to say that my own decision to do a secretarial course when I emerged from university with a degree in history but no practical skills whatsoever made no difference to my reaction to Jill when I re-read the book.
Once I’d finished the story, it sat on my forum for quite a while, until someone on social media decided they would make it an eBook themselves. They were dissuaded from this course of action, and I thought I might as well do it myself.
I was very nervous about putting it out as an actual book because, well, it’s Jill, and she’s iconic. And yes, some people have hated it, but most people haven’t, and I’m glad about that.
It’s available in eBook and paperback on my publishing website and via the usual sites.
Jill and the Unexpected Horses: this is a short story I am (as of 2024) re-writing and developing into a full-length story.
Jill and the Pony Club: in which Jill returns to Chatton (out of print)
Some reviews
Heroines on Horseback
thoroughly enjoyable ….. great read … the go-to pony book reference (Goodreads)
… not only is it put together with obvious love for the genre of the pony book itself but also for the authors who chose to write within it. Badger has a real knack for making the people behind the pages come to life and drawing the connections between them and their heroines without trying to superfluously interpret between the lines. That is where in my opinion the book truly shines – when it leaves the path of literary studies in a historical sense and looks at the authors’ biographical influences on their books. Anna, Goodreads
Jill and the Lost Ponies
Jill’s voice comes through as it ever did, and fans will thoroughly enjoy this … A great read for fans of the original series, but also for pony-loving children who are yet to discover Jill. Horse and Hound, 15 November, 2021
Last night I finished reading your Jill and the Lost Ponies. I can honestly say that It is one of the best sequels I’ve read… I love the way you tie in previous events from the Jill books and the way you weave the various characters into the plot. I love the way Jill talks to the reader, the comments she makes and the language she uses, because they are all so “Jill-like” and feel authentic to such an extent that it really feels as if RF is actually writing it… Thank you for a wonderful book. Kate, via email
This book is just amazing! If I didn’t know it wasn’t written by Mrs Ferguson, I would’ve thought she had written it. But more than being an impressively faithful sequel, it’s such a great story. Please, please, please bring on more of these books! And it would be fantastic if there were illustrations. Mousie, Goodreads
Jill and the Unexpected Horses
Short story but very cool, Jane Badger is carrying on where Ruby Ferguson left off, and for those of us who were pony mad kids whose heroine was Jill Crewe, this is heaven. Jane writes Jill just as Ruby did, its quite uncanny! love these short stories she writes of a late teenaged Jill, just fabulous. Kay, Goodreads
And also
Ten of the Best Horse & Pony Books, Books for Keeps, January 2012
The Peculiarities of Child Growth in Chatton, Folly Christmas Special, 2009
Introduction for reprint of Six Ponies, Josephine Pullein-Thompson, Fidra Books, 2007
Introduction for reprint of Silver Snaffles, Primrose Cumming, Fidra Books, 2007
How to Write a Pony Book, Folly Magazine, Summer 2004