Devery Jacobs (DJ): I love
Jonny Appleseed. I love the book. Reading it felt so personal. I kept forgetting that it wasn t a memoir. I know you had mentioned that to me before, that people keep calling you Jonny, as opposed to Josh. It s very much a novel, but it feels so personal. What inspired you to write
Joshua Whitehead (JW): I wrote
Jonny Appleseed because I needed Jonny to be in the world, like an avatar, as a figure for myself and then for the larger communities that I represent: a two-spirit community, queer Indigenous, trans Indigenous, non-binary Indigenous folks, specifically the youth across Turtle Island. I needed this glitter figure to be in the world, to be offering his stories and then also to be representing us. It s very Jonny Appleseed, the folktale figure planting the seeds but it s medicine instead of apples, all over and in people s bellies as they listen to these stories. He s been with me for over a decade now, percolating and collecting things. I