Dr. Sherri Williams and Brian were classmates in the doctoral program at Syracuse University. Sherri is a former newspaper reporter who is now a newly hired assistant professor at American University in Washington D.C. and incredibly gifted and prolific writer on the intersection of race, media and popular culture.

She and Brian talk about the difficulty they faced in moving from newspapers to academia and why they both, in part, don’t consider themselves fully academics. Sherri also discusses the impact Oprah had on her life and career, why she considers herself a storyteller above all else, the importance of the bulletin board at the supermarket or listening to people talk at a bar to finding story ideas, and how a looming deadline led her to write one of her most personal stories.