Connie Schultz presented by the Beck Series

The Beck Series presents Connie Schultz, Inaugural Nan Nowik Writer-in-Residence and Andrew W. Mellon Writer-in-Residence (‘21-’22) in conversation with Wesley J. Lowery and Jamil Smith.

Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize winning, nationally syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate, and Professional in Residence at Kent State University School of Journalism. She won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for columns that judges praised for providing “a voice for the underdog and the underprivileged.” She also won the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Social Justice Reporting and the Batten Medal, which honors “a body of journalistic work that reflects compassion, courage, humanity and a deep concern for the underdog.” Schultz is the author of three books published by Random House: “Life Happens – And Other Unavoidable Truths,” a collection of essays, and “…and His Lovely Wife,” a memoir about her husband Sherrod Brown’s successful 2006 race for the U.S. Senate. Her first novel, “The Daughters of Erietown” was released in June and is a New York Times bestseller. Schultz and her husband have four grown children and seven grandchildren. They live in Cleveland, Ohio with their rescue dogs Franklin and Walter.

Lowery is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author and correspondent for CBS News. Lowery was previously a national correspondent at the Washington Post, specializing in issues of race and law enforcement. He led the team awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2016 for the creation and analysis of a real-time database to track fatal police shootings in the United States. His most recent project, “Murder With Impunity,” an unprecedented look at unsolved homicides in major American cities, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2019. His first book, “They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement,” was a New York Times bestseller and was awarded the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose by the LA Times Book Prizes.

Smith has interrogated the most urgent problems facing our society and the world at-large throughout his career as a journalist, producer, and cultural critic. In various forms of media — television, radio, and most notably, his writing —  he has pushed policymakers to create a more just and equitable America and worked to spotlight those people who are working for solutions. Now a Senior Correspondent with Vox.com, Smith’s work ranges from reporting and writing essays for print to co-hosting the “Vox Conversations” podcast — named by Adweek as 2021’s Best Podcast By a Publisher. Previously, he was a Senior Writer at Rolling Stone, where he covered national affairs and culture. Smith’s career has run the gamut from politics to sports and back again, from Emmy Award-winning work as a producer with NFL Films and MSNBC to reporting, commentary, and podcast work for The New Republic and MTV News.