Sherman Alexie visited Highline High School on Tuesday, April 7, as part of Seattle Arts & Lectures’ Writers in the Schools (WITS) program. Alexie spoke to two groups of 100 Highline students in the library.

Sherman Alexie is an internationally-renowned fiction writer, poet, and filmmaker. Alexie’s young adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, was winner of the 2007 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and received a host of other honors including a 2008 Washington Book Award and a 2008 Pacific Northwest Book Award. In a March 2009 interview with Gary Sundt, Alexie offered the following advice to aspiring writers: “Read, read, read. Read 1,000 pages for every one you try to write. Everybody wants to come up and ask ‘What advice do you have?’ and I say ‘What’s your favorite book’ or ‘What book did you last read?’ If you don’t have that information... If you aren’t carrying a book around with you, then you’re doomed.”

About Seattle Arts & Lectures' Writers in the Schools
Seattle Arts & Lectures' Writers in the Schools program places professional local writers in public elementary, middle, and high school classrooms to spark interest and develop skills in reading and writing. Since its founding in 1994, the program has served 67,500 K-12 public school students and 1,200 teachers in the Puget Sound region. In the 2007-08 school year, the program has established 25 writer residencies in three districts: Seattle, Highline, and Tukwila. By encouraging students to write about what they know best -themselves-WITS helps students find their own, authentic voice.

For more information about Writers in the Schools, please contact WITS program manager Elizabeth Ames Staudt at 206-621-2230, x13 or elizabeth@lectures.org.

Top Photo: HHS Language Arts teacher Alanah Baron and Sherman Alexei