‘Bad Cree’ Author Jessica Johns Visits Brandeis for Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Brandeis Stories

'Bad Cree' Author Jessica Johns Visits Brandeis for Indigenous Peoples' Day

By David Levin
October 9, 2026 • Humanities and Social Sciences

In celebration of Indigenous Peoples' Day, the Brandeis Intercultural Center hosted a conversation about the power of storytelling with award-winning Canadian author Jessica Johns this week. Speaking to a crowd of eager students, faculty, and staff, Johns described her approach to writing her debut novel, Bad Cree-a horror-tinged story of an indigenous woman's journey of self-discovery as supernatural nightmares bleed into her waking life.

The book began, in part, as an act of artistic revenge, Johns noted. While earning her MFA, one of her professors advised her never to write about her dreams, claiming that the practice would alienate and bore audiences. The idea stung her deeply: as a member of the Sucker Creek First Nation in northern Alberta, Johns grew up in a culture where dreams are considered a key part of understanding the world.

"I left that class with one thought, and it was to write a story that centered dreams in a way that not only wouldn't lose a reader, but would be damn good," she says. A short story she crafted as a response eventually grew into her novel, which has since been nominated for multiple awards.

As a genre, horror offers a particularly apt way to talk about the themes of dislocation and loss that Indigenous peoples worldwide have endured, Johns says. In the US, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere, countless Native communities have been removed from their ancestral lands, cut off from their languages, and forcibly assimilated. Her novel reflects those continuing cultural nightmares, she notes, yet also offers a theme of resilience in times of darkness. "There are ways to live through [horror]," Johns says. "There's always something kind of like hope as part of it."