1966– 
WRITER UNITED STATES
I write books for teenagers because I vividly remember what it felt like to be a teen facing everyday and epic dangers. I don’t write to protect them. It’s far too late for that. I write to give them weapons—in the form of words and ideas—that will help them fight their monsters.
—SHERMAN ALEXIE
Even though he was just a toddler, Sherman turned the crisp, white pages of the picture book and read the words on his own. This was the first new book he’d ever read—all the others had been around for generations, it seemed, and their pages were dirty and crinkled. But what was even more fascinating about this book was that it was about a little black boy. It was The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats, and as Sherman read each page about Peter exploring his city after the first snowfall of the year, Sherman felt that he had found a friend—someone with similar experiences—in this book.
Sherman was neither black nor in the city—he was American Indian and on a reservation—but for the first time, he was seeing a minority child in a book. He didn’t have to imagine the kids in the illustrations having a skin color other than white, and this brought an overwhelming feeling of kinship. Sherman and Peter were more alike than they were different. As Sherman grew, he would remember the closeness he felt to Peter that first time he read The Snowy Day, and he would also write stories featuring characters his readers could relate to, though in a much different way.
Sherman Alexie was born in Spokane, Washington, on October 7, 1966, to parents from the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene Indian tribes. He was born with a condition called hydrocephalus, which is often called water on the brain. He had brain surgery when he was six months old, and although the surgery went well, doctors thought Sherman would be developmentally disabled his whole life. By the time he was three years old, though, Sherman had proved them all wrong—he had a high intelligence and was already reading!
While hydrocephalus has been called water on the brain, the liquid is actually cerebrospinal fluid. Everybody has this fluid in their brain, but if people have too much, it can damage the tissue in the brain. If surgery is completed successfully and early enough, the damage is only temporary.
Life on the reservation was not easy. Most of the residents were poor, and many struggled with alcoholism and other addictions. And, like many small towns, the rez was home to several bullies. This was especially frustrating for Sherman, who had seizures as a result of his hydrocephalus and was also extremely smart. He was an easy target.
Sherman started attending school in the nearest town, Reardon. He was the only Indian there, and he often felt challenged in his identity. His neighbors on the reservation felt he was shedding his Indian identity to go to the all-white school, but he didn’t fit in with his classmates either. This experience became the inspiration for one of Sherman’s later books, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Young adults from all backgrounds can relate to the main character’s experiences in trying to figure out his identity.
While Sherman has loved to read since he was very small, he waited until college to start to write. First, it was a big deal that Sherman was going to college. Very few Indians went to college at that time, and nobody from his reservation had ever graduated from college. But his family supported him—even his brothers and sisters gave him money to help pay for tuition and books.
Sherman was a star basketball player at his high school. He played on the varsity team, and he still loves the sport. In fact, basketball is hugely popular on the Spokane reservation.
Sherman first wanted to study medicine, but that changed when he attended a poetry writing workshop at Washington State University. Then a professor gave him a book that included stories by American Indians Leslie Silko and James Welch. “It was the first time I’d seen anything creative by an Indian,” Sherman said in an interview. “Everything else was archaic, loincloth literature. But they combined the day-to-day desperation of being Indian with the magic of being alive, in poems about powwows, broken-down cars, the food we eat, basketball. It was a revelation.”12
By the time Sherman was twenty-five, he was hooked on writing—and readers were hooked on him. He was awarded a Washington State Arts Commission Fellowship, and his first poetry book, The Business of Fancydancing, was published that year too. The next year he received a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship, one of the highest honors a poet can receive. His first short story collection, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, won a PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Book of Fiction in 1993.
“This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” is a story from this collection that is about a young man named Victor, who has grown up without knowing his father. When he learns of his father’s death, he plans a trip to Phoenix to pick up the truck his father left him. Along the way, he learns much about himself, his family, and the roles of sons and friends. This story is the basis for the movie Smoke Signals, which came out in 1998 and won the Sundance Festival Audience Award and the Filmmakers Trophy.
In his first novel, Reservation Blues, Sherman tells the story of an Indian band that plays the blues. Sherman has gone on to write many more books in each of these categories, including:
Poetry: First Indian on the Moon, Water Flowing Home, The Man Who Loves Salmon
Short Stories: The Toughest Indian in the World, Ten Little Indians, War Dances
Novels: Flight, The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian, Indian Killer
To say Sherman is a success would be an understatement. He helps readers learn the challenges that much of the Indian community experiences—such as racism and lack of opportunity—and to overcome their own battles with identity and purpose. He hopes that kids today relate to the authenticity of his characters and also feel inspired by his transcendence of the poverty and addiction he grew up with.
And he’s still an avid reader. Instead of using his wealth to buy fancy cars and mansions, Sherman says he gauges his wealth by a different standard: “When I’m in a store and there’s a book I want, I can always buy it. I never have to think about whether or not I can afford the book. I can buy a book a day, two books a day, three books a day, if I want. You talk about luxury, privilege? For me that’s privilege.”13
I’m going to rock the world by becoming a children’s book writer. I will write picture books, chapter books, and history books. I have a special book that I write poems in whenever I can. I’ve written a poem called “The Living Desert” and a story called “Kevin, the Duck.” My poem “Ducky is Lucky” was published.
JURE ERLIC 
AGE 8