Athabasca U: Announcing the 2020-21 Writer in Residence

The Athabasca University Writer-in-Residence committee is delighted to announce that acclaimed author Joshua Whitehead is the 2020-21 Writer in Residence. Welcome, Joshua!

Joshua 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 as well as the George Bugnet Award for Fiction. Most recently, 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.

Stay tuned for details on his upcoming talk. Guidelines and expectations for submitting creative work to the writer-in-residence can be found on the Writer in Residence page.

What is the Writer-in-Residence program?

The Writer-in-Residence is an invited artist who spends 60% of the one-year residency working on his or her own writing projects and 40% of the residency as a resource for students, faculty, the university community, and the writing community. The Writer-in-Residence advises these groups on all aspects of the writing process: from taking a manuscript from creation to publication. Stay tuned for future public readings and other literary events that Joshua will take part in.

Canada Reads nomination for Joshua Whitehead!

Congratulations to Joshua for being named as one of the prestigious writers in the CBC Canada Reads longlist for his book Jonny Appleseed!

2021 marks the 20th anniversary of the Canada Reads program — a CBC ‘Battle of the Books’ in which celebrity panelists defend a book they have chosen, and one-by-one, a Canada Reads shortlist is determined, followed by a consensus winner. The celebrity panellists and the books they choose to champion will be revealed on Jan. 14, 2021. The debates will take place March 8-11, 2021 on CBC Radio One, CBC TV, CBC Gem and on CBC Books.

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