QAF + Talking Stick Festival: a day in celebration of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Artists
Sun Jun 18 | 3pm
Free cinq-à-sept reception to follow at 5pm
Roundhouse Performance Centre – 181 Roundhouse Mews
Joshua Whitehead, Curator
Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction is an exciting and ground-breaking fiction collection showcasing a number of new and emerging Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer writers from across Turtle Island, edited and compiled by renowned author Joshua Whitehead. Whitehead joins us along with fellow visionary Indigenous authors and anthology contributors for a literary event demonstrating how queer Indigenous communities can bloom and thrive through utopian narratives.
While this event is ticketed, the cinq-à-sept reception that follows at 5pm is free and open to all. This reception takes place in the Roundhouse Exhibition Hall and features a book signing with the participating authors, presented in partnership with Massy Books, and DJ set by DJ Kota, courtesy of Full Circle: First Nations Performance.
These two events are part of a day-long trilogy of events celebrating Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer artists. Please see Virago Nation Burlesque for our 7pm event.
Joshua Whitehead
Joshua Whitehead (he/him) is a Two-Spirit, Oji-nêhiyaw member of Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1). He is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary where he is housed in the departments of English and International Indigenous Studies (Treaty 7).
He is the author of full-metal indigiqueer (Talonbooks 2017) which was shortlisted for the inaugural Indigenous Voices Award and the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry. He is also the author of Jonny Appleseed (Arsenal Pulp Press 2018) which was long listed for the Giller Prize, shortlisted for the Indigenous Voices Award, the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award, and won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction, the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction and Canada Reads 2021.
Whitehead is the editor of Love after the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction, which won the Lambda Award in 2021.
Whitehead’s latest book Making Love with the Land was published in 2022 with Knopf Canada, exploring the intersections of Indigeneity, queerness, and, most prominently, mental health through a nêhiyaw lens. The book was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Award for Nonfiction.
Nazbah Tom
Nazbah Tom (Diné), somatic practitioner/poet. They are published in Lambda Literary Award winner Love After The End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction. As a somatic practitioner they use conversation, breath work, gestural work, bodywork, and somatic skills to guide groups through a process of embodied transformation.
Nathan Adler
Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler (he/they) is the author of Wrist, a windigo story written from the monster’s perspective, and Ghost Lake, an inter-connected collection of short stories (both published by Kegedonce Press), and co-editor of a dream-themed anthology of Indigenous writers called Bawaajigan ~ Stories of Power (Exile Editions). Nathan has an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC, a BFA in Integrated Media from OCAD, and a BA (Hons) in English Literature and Native Studies from Trent University. He is recipient of an Indigenous Voices Award for prose, a Hnatyshyn Reveal award for literature, and first-place winner of an Aboriginal Writing Challenge for poetry. His writing has also appeared in various magazines, websites, and anthologies (Exile, Bedside Press, Arsenal Pulp Press). He is Jewish and Anishinaabe, Two Spirit, and a member of Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation.
jaye simpson
jaye simpson (she/they) is an Oji-Cree Saulteaux Indigiqueer from the Sapotaweyak Cree Nation. simpson is a writer, advocate and activist sharing their knowledge and lived experiences in hope of creating utopia. she is published in several magazines including Poetry Is Dead, This Magazine, PRISM international, SAD Magazine: Green, GUTS Magazine, SubTerrain, Grain and Room. They are in four anthologies: Hustling Verse (2019), Love After the End (2020), The Care We Dream Of (2021), and Queer Little Nightmares (2022). Their first poetry collection, it was never going to be okay (Nightwood Ed.) was shortlisted for the 2021 ReLit Award and a 2021 Dayne Ogilvie Prize Finalist and won the 2021 Indigenous Voices Award for Published Poetry in English. Their next collection of poetry, a body more tolerable, is forthcoming Fall 2024.
