Joshua Whitehead: On Bodies of Writing lecture

Whitehead is an Oji-nêhiyaw, Two-Spirit member of Peguis First Nation. He is the author of full-metal indigiqueer (Talonbooks 2017) which was shortlisted for the inaugural Indigenous Voices Award and the Stephen G. Stephansson Award for Poetry. His novel, Jonny Appleseed (Arsenal Pulp 2018) was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, shortlisted for a Governor General’s Literary Award, the Amazon First Novel Prize, the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award, and the Indigenous Voices Award for Published Prose in English, and won a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction, the George Bugnet Award for Fiction, and, most recently, the CBC’s 2021 Canada Reads competition. His edited anthology Love after the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction (Arsenal Pulp 2020) was launched with Arsenal Pulp.

Currently, Whitehead is working on a book of creative non-fiction entitled Making Love with the Land that details mental health, queerness, and Indigeneity.

Now celebrating its tenth year, Athabasca University’s Writer in Residence program hosts an artist who spends 60 per cent of the one-year residency working on their own writing projects and 40 per cent of the residency acting as a teaching and professional resource for students, faculty, and the university community. The Writer in Residence advises these groups on all aspects of the writing process, including taking a manuscript from creation to publication. The Writer in Residence often participates in public readings and other literary events and can also serve faculty as a research and teaching resource. Athabasca University is honoured to have had so many tremendous writers walk our virtual halls as our Writer in Residence in these 10 years.