Sherman Alexie Archive
What’s the Point: How Sherman Alexie, Ross Gay, and Tommy Pico Write About Pain
A few weeks after the release of his memoir, Sherman Alexie cancelled the second half of his national book tour. “I have been rebreaking my heart night after night,” he explained. Writing about pain had become a process of inflicting it on himself.
The Limits and Freedoms of Literary Regionalism: Defining Homeland in Sherman Alexie’s Stories of the Pacific Northwest
Sherman Alexie, arguably the most recognized Native writer, has brought both visibility to his hometown and the home of his ancestry. Born in Spokane, Washington to a member of the Coeur d’Alene tribe, Alexie weaves decidedly non-universal narratives, choosing instead to celebrate the specificity of his people in Spokane
Big Picture, Small Picture: Context for Sherman Alexie’s “What You Pawn I Will Redeem”
Alexie’s short story is first published in the New Yorker on April 21. The story’s protagonist is Jackson Jackson, a member of the Spokane tribe and a homeless alcoholic, who tracks his twenty-four-hour mission to redeem his grandmother’s stolen powwow regalia from a Seattle pawn shop.
Reading POC is Grand but Why Aren’t We Reading Natives?
Leonardo DiCaprio called during his Golden Globes acceptance speech for viewers to deepen our appreciation and respect for First Nations tribes, and made-for-cable movies are showing Natives in a more positive, less violent light. But what about us writers and readers? Who among us is giving a shout out
Round-Down: On the Necessity of Banned Book Week
Just in time for Banned Books Week, the first book to be banned in New Zealand in twenty years is available in the United States. The young adult novel, Into the River by Ted Dawe, which ironically won the 2013 New Zealand Post Children’s Book Award, was banned last
A White Man Used An Asian Woman’s Name To Publish A Poem. Does That Change The Poem? Yes: A Brown Man Explains
By now you’ve probably read about the 2015 Best American Poetry scandal. For the uninitiated, the story goes like this: the anthology comes out with a contributor note by the editor, Sherman Alexie, which states that one of the poets included in the anthology, Yi-Fen Chou, is actually the
Round-Down: Is the “Most Challenged Books of 2014” List Real?
As anyone ever tasked with disciplining a child (or heck, even anyone who has ever been a child) can attest, telling someone they are forbidden from accessing something only makes that person more likely to want that particular thing. Case in personal point: when I was about thirteen, my
Crossing Over: Literary Fiction Writers Tackling YA
The other day I was browsing in a favorite bookstore, moving backward through the alphabet, when I noticed Sherman Alexie’s novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, toward the front of the As in Fiction. I stopped and looked around. Had I walked into the Young Adult/Children’s