Joshua Whitehead is an Oji-Cree/nehiyaw, Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer member of Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1). He is the author of the bestselling novel Jonny Appleseed (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018), longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award, and winner of Canada Reads; and the poetry collection full-metal indigiqueer (Talonbooks, 2017), which was the winner of the Governor General's History Award for the Indigenous Arts and Stories Challenge in 2016. He is also the editor of Love after the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020). His next book is a work of creative non-fiction entitled Making Love with the Land that details mental health, queerness, and Indigeneity and is forthcoming with Knopf Canada.

Joshua Whitehead's profile page

• Short-listed, Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry (Alberta Literary Awards)
• Short-listed, Indigenous Voices Award for Most Significant Work of Poetry in English by an Emerging Indigenous Writer
• Joint winner, One of the 10 best books of Canadian poetry of 2017 (CBC Books)

“Both the form and content of the poems throughout Full-Metal Indigiqueer slice through barriers imposed by the conventions of language, to assert a new kind of identity for Whitehead, as the poet struggles and fights against the social, literary, and individual colonizations that he lives with/in. … Whitehead displays a clear love for the possibilities of written language, despite his misgivings about how it has come to be a part of his life through the colonial process. The creative use of text and language throughout this collection suggests that creative use of language can become a bold way through the traps set up to confine speakers to sanctioned ways of expressing themselves.”
—Wes Babcock, Bywords

“One of the most distinctive and original collections of Indigenous poetry ever published … Several lines in the collection haunt me. They manage to cut through the digital and pop-culture background noise of the collection to emerge as striking and resonant articulations of Indigenous queerness.”
—Plentitude Magazine

“These poems do not simply deconstruct language and knowledge; they create an opportunity for readers to create new knowledges, new definitions of self and community, and to ‘sing the skin back to [their] bones’ … This collection will be of interest to readers and scholars actively seeking a collection of poetry that forges new modes of understanding and expression and that relentlessly and unapologetically builds towards an Indigenous future. These are poems of affirmation, resilience, and resistance. ”
—Francisco Delgado, Transmotion

“A spirited collection [… that] shifts and spins, smashing preconceptions from within and without his immediate vicinity. … This is an impressive work, and a writer very much worth paying attention to.”
—rob mclennan

"Joshua Whitehead is badass, with language like twin-pistols and impeccable aim. If you haven’t read this book yet, you need to correct that and give this collection however long it takes for you to read it cover to cover."
—Megan Black, CITR Intimate Reviews

“Joshua Whitehead has crafted a radical cyber poetic that breaks the boundaries between paper and screen, between the visual and the written word, and between the past and the future. Full-Metal Indigiqueer is an Indigital queer manifesto that clears the paths ahead.”
—Qwo-Li Driskill, author of Walking with Ghosts: Poems