When revered Notre Dame alumnus and award-winning journalist Red Smith died in 1982, the University created a lecture series in his name, sponsored by John and Susan McMeel and Universal Press Syndicate, and founded by author Robert Schmuhl. Fifteen lectures by the country’s most respected journalists and writers as well as sixteen articles and columns by Smith himself are included in this compilation. Part celebration of Smith’s life, part tutorial on the writer’s art, and part examination of the state of journalism, this timely and timeless portrait of contemporary media and its role in American culture is literate, accessible, and filled with engaging prose by masters of the written word.

Making Words Dance: Perspectives on Red Smith, Journalism, and Writing is a timely and timeless collection of lectures examining both the writer's art and the role of journalism in American culture.

Making Words Dance features lectures by fifteen of the country's most respected journalists and writers, given as part of the lecture series at the University of Notre Dame honoring award-winning columnist Red Smith. Edited by Robert Schmuhl, director of the Red Smith Lecture in Journalism since its inception in 1983, the collection offers assessments of the news business and writing by Ted Koppel, Frank McCourt, Jim Lehrer, Judy Woodruff, David Remnick, and James Reston, among others. Notably, the book also includes the final lecture on journalism given by Tim Russert before his untimely death in 2008.

The collected lectures are complemented by sixteen articles and columns by Smith, a stylist and reporter whose writing always danced and taught lessons about the craft. Both an entertaining tutorial on the writer's art and an incisive commentary on the state of contemporary media, Making Words Dance is a fitting celebration of the life and work of one of American journalism's most notable figures.