Excerpt from American Bee: Speller profile, Aliya Deri

Aliya, from San Francisco, is one of five spellers this book follows as they compete in the National Bee.

AMERICAN BEE
The National Spelling Bee and the Culture of Word Nerds
The Lives of Five Top Spellers as They Compete for Glory and Fame

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Excerpt: Aliya Deri

If the group of spellers that gathers every year for the National Bee is distinguished by a certain geek chic—the attractive nerdiness of the intellectually inclined—by comparison to many in this group, Aliya Deri falls closer to the chic end of the continuum.

Personable, mature beyond her years, with an easy laugh, Aliya has a touch of the Bay Area’s sophistication. She’s a longtime devotee of Tai Chi, a pretty fair jazz pianist, and an avid, adventurous reader who raids her father’s paperback collection. “I think my parents will agree that I read way too much,” she says, with a chuckle.

In fact, she’s an intellectual omnivore. In addition to being a top speller, she also competes in Mathcounts, performs in two orchestras—playing both violin and viola—and is a creative writer. In her rare free time, she’s a competitive swimmer and diver and an accomplished dancer. Aliya (pronounced “Olly–ah”), in short, is something of a super-girl.

But, like many super heroes, something separates her from absolute perfection, at least in the realm of competitive orthography.

It’s her nerves. The fluttering butterflies can bother her terribly. That everyone is staring at her, waiting for her to issue letters, weighs on her. Certainly she pays homage to the gods of lingual fortune: “You’re just wearing every lucky charm possible, sleeping with lucky charms under your pillow, crossing your fingers and praying that you’re going to get a word that you know.” Still, stage nerves can play havoc with her spelling, as they did in the 2004 Nationals.

At the microphone, Aliya, then in the seventh grade, spelled with a deep seriousness. She stood nearly still, her arms at her sides, with her long dark hair pulled back and parted in the middle. Despite her focus, toward the later rounds her nerves seemed to be creeping up.

Impressively, she conquered a word she had never seen before, peritonitis, by sounding it out at the microphone. But when she faced toxophily—which she knew—she started to struggle. She had trouble getting the pronunciation, going back and forth with the judges, voicing it numerous times, the anxiety in her voice escalating as she went. Finally, she closed her eyes (an essential part of her ritual), shutting out the crowded ballroom. The letters came evenly, almost floating out. She was correct. Unsmiling, she walked quietly back to her seat.

She had survived, yet the next round, facing belonoid, things got tougher still. She didn’t know the word, and as she ruminated on the possibilities, a cloud cover of semi-fear moved in.

She had prepared for this moment, but when it arrived, the waves were cresting higher than expected. “I definitely practice a lot. I try to envision myself spelling in front of an audience. I close my eyes a lot, because the glare, and people staring at you, and people taking pictures, can be really distracting.

“And breathing is good. Just making sure that you’re keeping on breathing. Because a lot of people I’ve seen just stop for a moment. And it’s not something you want to do.”

She kept breathing, but it wasn’t enough. Having thousands of eyeballs directed at her was not, for her, the ideal space for peace of mind. “I think part of the reason I got belonoid wrong is because I panicked,” she recalls. “Which is not something you ever want to do in a Bee, because all the letters count.”

Panic. That’s a tough thing to overcome.

As the bell rang, sending her offstage, a minor storm moved in. “Well, of course you have a certain feeling that the sky is about to fall, and the world’s about to end. Once you hear the fateful bell ring, you kind of feel the world is collapsing around you. You really feel that every eye is on you. It’s an experience that, I think, everyone feels a certain number of times.”

However, she recalls months later, “It wasn’t the biggest thing in the world. I usually take it pretty well.” Overall, the experience was “definitely a lot more good than bad.”

She had tied for 27th in a field of 265. If she could return in 2005—and master her stage nerves—she had a realistic shot at the trophy. Could she do it?

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