Connie Schultz

Connie Schultz is a columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Schultz grew up in the working-class town of Ashtabula, Ohio. She was the first in her family to go to college, and graduated with a journalism degree from Kent State University in 1979. In 2005, in addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize for commentary, she also won the Scripps-Howard and National Headliners awards for commentary.

In 2004, Schultz won the James Batten Medal for a three-year body of work of stories and columns illuminating the struggles of underdogs and ordinary folks. In 2003, she won Best of Show in the National Headliner Awards competition for her narrative series “The Burden of Innocence”. The series also won the Robert F. Kennedy Award for social justice reporting (domestic) and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. She previously was an American Society of Newspaper Editors finalist for commentary, which resulted in the publication of one of her columns in the book 2002 Best Newspaper Writing. She also has been named the best feature writer in the state by the Associated Press Society of Ohio and an American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors Award for best short feature. In 1998, her narrative series on a dying woman, “Losing Lisa”, was judged the best in Ohio. Schultz is also the author of Life Happens, and Other Unavoidable Truths released in 2006 and . . .And His Lovely Wife: A Memoir of the Woman Beside the Man, released in June 2007, about her experiences as the wife of a candidate for political office.

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