Poet-Novelist-Filmmaker (and personal favorite writer) Sherman Alexie was a featured guest at the Texas Book Festival in Austin, speaking at the Texas State Capitol and, as shown here, participating in a Young Adult novelists' panel at Alamo Drafthouse-Lamar on November 3, 2007. He reads a snippet from his new book "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" and then answers a few questions at the end. The panel included eight writers (i'll post clips of some of the others over time). At one point he appears to be flippant, but it's a false impression -- the questions were being randomly drawn from a fishbowl, and the questioner had no choice about who or what to ask (a perfectly odd format). In any case i thought Sherman handled it with great humor and poise, and made the situation evolve into a funny and astute answer.
Also on the panel were Jacques Couvillon, Cynthia Leitich Smith, Adrienne Kress, Perry Moore, April Lurie, Neil Shusterman and Brian Yansky. The hosts were Barbara Chisholm and Rosalind Faires.
Check out Sherman's site at http://www.fallsapart.com/
Note that the new book he reads from here has just been nominated for a National Book Award!
UPDATE: Alexie WON the National Book Award for this book. Congrats Sherman!
Many, many thanks to Sherman for posting a link to this video on the homepage of his website. Esokapi!
Alexie is also the writer and director of three acclaimed films -- Smoke Signals (the first film made and produced by an all Native American cast and crew), The Business of Fancydancing (a highly underrated and overlooked film in my opinion) and 49.
Filmed and edited by tony gallucci, milk river film
Holly Riedel, executive producer
Tags: Sherman Alexie Absolutely True Diary Indian literature novel Texas Book Festival Austin tony gallucci milkriverfilm
