Joshua Whitehead

Joshua Whitehead is an Oji-Cree, Two-Spirit storyteller and academic from Peguis First Nation on Treaty 1 territory in Manitoba. His novel Jonny Appleseed won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction and was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award, longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and was named a finalist for the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for Canadian LGBTQ writers. His most recent book of poetry is full-metal indigiqueer. Whitehead has been published widely in Canadian literary magazines such as Prairie Fire, EVENT, Arc Poetry Magazine, CV2, Red Rising Magazine, and Geez Magazine’s Decolonization issue. He is currently working toward a PhD in Indigenous literatures and cultures at the University of Calgary on Treaty 7 territory.

Twitter: @JWhitehead204
Instagram: @jwhitehead204

Jonny Appleseed weaponizes story to bring the rez (and urban rez) to life, shrouding its characters in luminous layers so they’re neither good nor bad but immersed in worlds and words. Unflinching and intimate, Joshua Whitehead takes his readers on a journey to the heart of an NDN glitter princess with generous, swooning prose.” — Eden Robinson

FESTIVAL BOOK

Jonny Appleseed

Off the reserve and trying to find ways to live and love in the big city, Jonny becomes a cybersex worker who fetishizes himself to make a living. Self-ordained as an NDN glitter princess, Jonny has one week before he must return to the ‘rez’ – and his former life – to attend the funeral of his stepfather. The seven days that follow are like a fevered dream: stories of love, trauma, sex, kinship, ambition, and the heartbreaking recollection of his beloved kokum (grandmother). Jonny’s life is a series of breakages, appendages, and linkages. He goes through the motions of preparing to return home, learning how to put together the pieces of his life.