Michael Flanigan

Contributor

Submitted Photo | Pulitzer Prize winner James Sheeler will be on campus on April 3. 

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist James Sheeler will be on the campus of Lorain County Community College. Sheeler will speak about his journey to winning the Pulitzer on April 3 at 2:00 p.m. at LCCC’s Stocker Cinema Hall.

Specializing in narrative journalism, Sheeler covered the deaths of soldiers in the Iraq war starting in 2003. His coverage of the war lead to a 12,000-word article that won him the Pulitzer Prize in 2006.

A Shirley Wormser professor of journalism and media writing in Case Western Reserve University’s English Department, Sheeler won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 2006 for his series of articles for the Rocky Mountain News called “Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives”.

The 24-page piece chronicled the story of a Marine casualty assistance calls officer with the heartbreaking task of informing friends and family that their loved ones had been killed in action. Maj. Steve Beck served as Sheeler’s key figure, a Marine who specialized in assisting the families of the fallen.  It was later published as a book under the same title.

The book version went on to become a finalist for the National Book Award for nonfiction in 2008.

His experiences later led him to write “Obit: Inspiring Stories of Everyday People who led Extraordinary Lives”, published in 2007.

Sheeler received his bachelor’s degree in technical journalism from Colorado State University in 1990. He went on the earn his master’s degree in journalism from the University of Colorado in 2007.

The event is free and open to the public.

Kristin Hohman contributed to this story.