Making Words Dance features lectures by fifteen of America's most respected journalists and writers, given as part of the lecture series at the University of Notre Dame honouring 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.