Mapping Wonder: An Entomologist’s Creative Journey
As a writer and entomologist at the Montréal Insectarium, Charles-Étienne Ferland has always been “deeply intrigued by living things.” As a child, he would bring creatures he discovered in his back years to his neighbour, an entomologist at Agriculture Canada, a curiosity that never left him.
Charles-Étienne’s first creative language was drawing, then writing; In 2013 he began a project that moved through several forms before becoming his first novel Dévorer. That book, like Métamorphoses, is anchored in science, which has led him to give talks in schools, colleges, and even in a correctional setting where audiences want to know where science ends and fiction begins.
As those encounters multiplied, Charles-Étienne looked for better ways to structure his message and discovered entrepreneurial tools, which led him to the Quebec Scientific Entrepreneurship Program. He wanted right the vocabulary to put what he had in mind on a single page, and found that the Business Model Canvas introduced during QcSE to be the most useful way to map out his project and refine his pitch.
As Charles-Étienne puts it, his work sits at the intersection of art and science. He champions a broad view of scientific entrepreneurship, noting that the QcSE program can be a great fit for social sciences and the arts as well as for natural sciences, because what it changes most is how you think about and tell the story of your project.
Today, Charles-Étienne continues to write, to translate science for the public, and to build. His path shows how a passion for the living world can grow into a clear, shareable, and impactful proposition once you learn to structure it and pitch it with confidence.