Alicia C. Shepard

Alicia C. Shepard teaches journalism at American University. She is the author of the new book, Woodward and Bernstein: Life in the Shadow of Watergate (www.woodwardandbernstein.net) She spent the last four years interview ing mo re than 175 people connected to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein and sifting through the new archival materials that University of Texas bought from Woodward and Bernstein for $5 million in 2003.

Shepard contributes to Washingtonian and People magazines, and has written for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune. For nearly a decade, she wrote for American Journalism Review on such things as ethics, the newspaper industry and how journalism works - or doesn't. For that work, the National Press Club awarded her its top media criticism prize three differe nt yea rs. From 1982 to 1987, she was a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News in California. She is co-author of Running Toward Danger: Stories Behind the Breaking News of 9/11 (2002), about how journalists covered 9/11 and the role they played as modern-day keepers of calm on America's most terrifying day.

Shepard has traveled extensively in the U.S. and abroad. In 20 02, sh e bicycled 517 miles from Amsterdam to Paris. In 1987, Shepard, her husband and one-year-old son, Cutter, set sail on their 32-foot sailboat, “Yankee Lady,” for the South Pacific. They spent three years cruising in the islands and she wrote about their adventures. They sailed to Japan and stayed for two more years writing, editing, teaching English and learning Japanese.

Shepard gradu ated w ith honors in English in 1978 from The George Washington University and received a masters in journalism from the University of Maryland in 2002.