About the Author

Connie Schultz, a bi-weekly columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2005. Her other accolades include the Scripps-Howard National Journalism Award, the National Headliner Award, the Batten Medal, and the Robert F. Kennedy Award for social-justice reporting. Her narrative series "The Burden of Innocence," which chronicled the life of a man wrongly incarcerated for rape, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. After the series ran, the real rapist turned himself in, and he is now serving a five-year prison sentence. vote. In a more humorous vein, Connie shares her mother's advice on men ("Don't marry him until you see how he treats the waitress") and warns men everywhere against using the dreaded f-word (it's not the one you think). Along the way, Connie introduces us to the heroic people who populate our world and shows us how just one person can make a difference.

Charming, provocative, funny, and perceptive, Life Happens gives us, for the first time, Connie Schultz's celebrated commentary in one irresistible volume. Life Happens challenges us to be more open and alive to others and to the world around us.

Connie is married to Ohio's popular congressman Sherrod Brown.

Reviews

In a first collection, containing pieces that originally appeared in her syndicated, twice-weekly column, Schultz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for Cleveland's Plain Dealer and the wife of Ohio congressman Sherrod Brown, tackles issues (both personal and political) that many of us confront every day. The columns are arranged thematically, with new introductions. Schultz touches on topics she knows from her own life, such as raising children or her divorce and remarriage, as well as timely political issues, such as the debate over gay marriage and the locally felt impact of the Iraq War. The author invariably incorporates her opinions into her writing, and those who disagree with her seemingly Democratic political standpoint might be put off. Yet the stories are written in such a down-to-earth manner, as if Schultz were speaking directly to the reader, that one feels one knows her and her family and friends. Recommended for larger public libraries.-Leigh Mihlrad, Albert Einstein Coll. of Medicine of Yeshiva Univ., Bronx, NY Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.