Remember when you were a kid and heard all the family stories? I mean the official ones—the ones we heard over and over, the ones we had permission to retell. But we all know that there are other family stories—the ones that don’t get talked about. The things you suspected, or felt more than knew. The older I get, the more I believe our writing lives begin there, in the world between what’s documented and what’s passed down in phrases, glances, feelings.
Today’s guest, Joseph Bolton, stepped right into that space and built a world. He took the true thread of his French-Canadian and Algonquin ancestry and wove it into Old Grandmother’s Tree—two volumes of fully illustrated original folktales with Northern Lights shawls, trickster animals, and one fierce ancestor at the center: Mityo Goku.
We get into how an INFJ intuition becomes a writing process, how grief and curiosity can open creative doors, and what it takes to honor culture while inventing boldly. If you’ve ever wondered how to turn family history into living story, this one’s your permission slip.
We cover:
- From one assignment to a universe: A French-class story about farm animals sledding becomes a two-volume, 40K-word cycle with ~450 full-color illustrations.
- The intuitive build: Joseph’s INFJ pattern-spotting, writing without outlines, and following the “good idea fairy” at 2 a.m.
- An ancestor at the center: The life of Mityo Goku—widowed at 22, children taken, later praised by her community as courageous and loving—and how Joseph uses folktale “language” to tell deeper truths.
- Team storytelling: Storyboards by Masami Kyoto → final art by Natasha Pelly-Smith (Cree/Ojibwe), and how the visual magic shaped the writing.
- Respecting culture: Research, community feedback from the Algonquin community in Pembroke, ON, and an invitation that became kinship.
- Language matters: Publishing in English and Quebec French now; a plan to translate future work into the Algonquin language—and the real costs of keeping languages alive.
- Place as portal: Returning to Quebec post-COVID, feeling the land as lineage, and renaming Magog to Saint-Autery inside the books.
- Grief as ignition: Losing two brothers, writing to leave something that connects people across borders and generations.
- Let them doubt you: The bookstore owner who said it would fail—and why that became fuel.
My favorite thread:
Stories don’t end when someone dies. They keep moving through us. Joseph’s work is a reminder that writing can be an act of reunion—between languages, between cousins who’ve never met, between who we were told we are and who we’re still becoming.
Try this (Writer’s Prompt):
Write a 700–1200 word folktale about an ancestor—real or rumored. Give them one magical object that reveals who they are. Let a trickster character witness the turning point. Don’t research first. Write the heartbeat, then layer facts later.
Find out more about Joseph and his work here: https://oldgrandmotherstree.com/
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