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December 1, 2004
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Media Contact: |
Mike Andrei
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Event
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Daemen Office of
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Novelist, Poet, Screenplay Writer Sherman Alexie to Speak at Daemen College As Keynote Speaker for 2005 Daemen Academic Festival
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Prolific novelist, poet, and screenplay writer Sherman Alexie, hailed as one of the best young writers of his generation, will speak at Daemen College 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, April 19th, 2005 in Wick Center. Alexie will be the keynote speaker for the 2005 Daemen College Academic Festival. His talk, "Without Reservations: An Urban Indian's Comic,
Poetic & Highly Irreverent Look at the World" will be presented by the Daemen College Office of the President, and Robert Warren and the Estate of Rupert Warren. Alexie's appearance will be free and open to the public.
The Daemen College Academic Festival centers on student presentations to the community and campus guests, providing a showcase for academic achievement and excellence through student and faculty presentations, exhibitions, and performances. These presentations may reflect work done in a single discipline or be interdisciplinary in nature, and range in form from posters, papers, panel discussions, exhibits, or videos, to artistic, musical, or theatrical performances. Named by The New Yorker as one of the top 20 writers for the 21st century, Alexie's talent and voice shine brightly, far beyond the pages of his work. A gifted orator, he won the World Heavyweight Championship Poetry Bout four years in a row - from 1998 to 200l. In his lectures, he tells tales of contemporary American Indian life laced with razor-sharp humor, unsettling candor and biting wit, reshaping myths and stereotypes by speaking his mind on a wide range of issues - from race relations, religion and politics, to homophobia, war and morality. Alexie is from the Northwest's Spokane/Coeur d'Alene region; he grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington State. As a college student, he landed in a poetry-writing class and his professor quickly recognized his "intensity of language, passion and energy." Upon the publication of The Business of Fancydancing, his first collection of poetry, The New York Times Book Review described him as "one of the major lyric voices of our time." Since then, Alexie has authored seven books of poetry, several collections of short stories, two novels and numerous works for magazines. He wrote the screenplay for and produced the feature film "Smoke Signals," based on his book The Lone Ranger and Tonto - Fistfight in Heaven. The film premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival, winning both the Audience Award and Filmmakers Trophy. His first novel, Reservation Blues, won Booklist's Editors Choice Award for Fiction. Indian Killer was a New York Times Notable Book and The Toughest Indian in the World won the 2001 PEN/Malamud award, honoring excellence in the art of storytelling. In his latest book, Ten Little Indians, a national bestseller and Publishers Weekly Book of the Year, Alexie's stories are driven by a haunting lyricism and naked candor that cut to the heart of the human experience. In 2002 Alexie released his directorial debut, "The Business of Fancydancing," which he also wrote. The film won many awards, including the Outstanding Screenwriting Award at Outfest. He is currently working on a screenplay adaptation of The Toughest Indian in the World, which he will direct and co-produce. In 2003 Alexie received Washington State University's Highest Alumnus Award, recognizing the importance of his Native American voice to a broad audience. With his humorous, revealing and exuberant works of art, Alexie compels audiences to see the world for all of its pitfalls and its possibilities. |