Author and filmmaker, Brian Young is a graduate of both Yale University with a Bachelor’s in Film Studies and Columbia University with a Master’s in Creative Writing Fiction. An enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, he grew up on the Navajo Reservation but now currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. As an undergraduate, Brian won a fellowship with the prestigious Sundance Ford Foundation with one of his feature length scripts. He has worked on several short films including Tsídii Nááts’íílid (Sid-dee Naw-see-lid) – Rainbow Bird and A Conversation on Race with Native Americans for the short documentary series produced by the New York Times. He was a participant of the 6th Annual Native American TV Writer’s Lab with the Native American Media Alliance, where he learned to write Television Scripts. He has published two middle grade novels, Healer of the Water Monster and Heroes of the Water Monster, as well as contributed short stories to Ancestor Approved and A Little Bit Super. In addition to writing for middle grade, Brian is working on another several Young Adult and Adult fiction books and has worked as a cultural consultant on Jamie Lee Curtis and Russell Goldman’s graphic novel, Mother Nature. His first YA novel, Shards of Silence (May 2026), bridges the generational divide between a Navajo teen at an elite prep school and his great-grandmother’s experience at a federal boarding school for Indigenous students.
Shards of Silence
In his first YA novel, award-winning author Brian Lee Young (Diné) bridges the generational divide between a Navajo teen at an elite prep school and his great-grandmother’s experience at a federal boarding school for Indigenous students. The book is an eye-opening call for community healing and a profound coming-of-age story.
Even if it hurts to leave behind his friends and family in Navajo, New Mexico—especially his great-grandmother, Mildred—Derrick knows his scholarship to an elite East Coast boarding school is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Sagefield Academy is totally different from life on the rez: His new classmates vacation in Europe and take study drugs. Derrick wants to stick to caffeine, but handling sports, school, and a twenty-page term paper, all while dodging comments about his hair and heritage, feels straight-up impossible.
Back home, Másání Mildred’s health is fading quickly. On the phone, she begs Derrick to leave Sagefield. When he realizes her fear comes from her time in federal Native boarding schools, he knows he’s finally found the term paper theme he believes in: carrying her voice into the future.
Derrick will need to shatter a steadfast generational silence to untangle his great-grandmother’s memories–though her story might change him, and his family, forever.
“Brian gave an energetic and interesting presentation to our sixth graders. Students engaged with thoughtful questions about his Navajo tribe, Native American culture, and writing process. The photos and artifacts he shared, as well as speaking in Navajo, helped make valuable connections for students.” — White Plains School District, 2024
