In this faculty spotlight, we are pleased to introduce you to Samuel G. Freedman, an award-winning journalist and longtime professor of journalism at Columbia Journalism School who is the author of the new book Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: The Journey From Stage to Screen, which will be published by Assouline on December 17. Professor Freedman's lavishly illustrated book explores the rich and multifaceted history behind two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner August Wilson's celebrated play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and chronicles its adaptation by screenwriter Ruben Santiago-Hudson into the forthcoming Netflix film directed by George C. Wolfe and starring Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman. Professor Freedman began writing about August Wilson and his plays in 1984, when he interviewed him for The New York Times after the Broadway premiere of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
A 2012 recipient of Columbia University’s Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching, Professor Freedman teaches Columbia Journalism School students how to develop their own book projects in his legendary "Book Writing" class, which is open by application to those in the Master of Science and Master of Arts programs. During the 15-week seminar, students learn how to prepare a book proposal, including an overview essay, and a sample chapter, both at least 4,000 words long. Each student enters the class with sufficient material from elsewhere or an idea that can be researched in the New York area. Coursework in "Book Writing" ranges from intensive study of literary nonfiction and journalistic fiction, with related writing assignments on a weekly basis, to instruction in the techniques of reporting, writing extended narrative, and producing a book proposal. Please click HERE to watch a video about the class featuring Professor Freedman and alumni Shomari Wills ('13 M.S.), author of Black Fortunes, and Christina Brown Fisher ('17 M.S.).
"I started the 'Book Writing' class in 1991 - it was a start-up of a literary sort," Professor Freedman explained. "I had the idea that in a school of journalism, we're teaching people all other kinds of journalistic storytelling - whether in film, radio, newspaper, magazine, and digital - so there ought to be a place for writing books. My models for the class were conservatory programs. I wanted the class to be for nonfiction books what the Iowa Writers Workshop is for fiction, what the Berklee College of Music is for jazz, and what Juilliard is for playwriting, acting, dance, and music. It's really evolved in that way. Now, in the years that I have taught the class, 88 students have gotten book contracts for books that began in the class. Some of those books have been reviewed on the front page of The New York Times Book Review, won major literary prizes, and been on bestseller lists. The class has been a tremendous success, and it's been a constant joy for me to teach it."
In addition to Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Professor Freedman has authored eight books. Most recently, he published, with Kerry Donohue, Dying Words: The AIDS Reporting of Jeff Schmalz and How It Transformed The New York Times (2015). His previous books are Breaking The Line: The Season in Black College Football That Transformed the Game and Changed the Course of Civil Rights (2013); Small Victories: The Real World of a Teacher, Her Students and Their High School (1990); Upon This Rock: The Miracles of a Black Church (1993); The Inheritance: How Three Families and America Moved from Roosevelt to Reagan and Beyond (1996); Jew vs. Jew: The Struggle for the Soul of American Jewry (2000); Who She Was: My Search for My Mother’s Life (2005); and Letters To A Young Journalist (2006).
Professor Freedman was a staff reporter for The New York Times from 1981 through 1987 and currently writes the column “On Religion.” From 2004 through 2008, he wrote the “On Education” column, which won first prize in the Education Writers Association’s annual competition. He was also a regular columnist on American Jewish issues for the Jerusalem Post from 2005 through 2009. He has contributed to numerous other publications and websites, including The New Yorker, Daily Beast, New York, Rolling Stone, USA Today, Salon, Tablet, The Forward, and BeliefNet.
Professor Freedman began teaching at Columbia Journalism School thirty years ago, in 1990, and joined the permanent faculty in 1993. In 1997, he was named the nation's outstanding journalism educator by the Society of Professional Journalists in recognition of his exceptional teaching ability and his commitment to holding Columbia students to the highest standards of the profession.
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