Howard A. Rodman is the past president of the Writers Guild of America West; professor of screenwriting at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts; a member of the National Film Preservation Board; and an artistic director of the Sundance Screenwriting Labs. In 2021 he was elected a Governor of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and in 2023 an Academy Vice President.

Rodman wrote SAVAGE GRACE, with Julianne Moore and Eddie Redmayne, nominated for Best Screenplay at the 2009 Spirit Awards, and AUGUST, starring Josh Hartnett and David Bowie.  He also wrote JOE GOULD’S SECRET, the opening night film of the Sundance Film Festival, based on the memoir by iconic New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell. He wrote multiple episodes of the Showtime series FALLEN ANGELS and most recently was a staff writer on the HBO Max series THE IDOL for director Sam Levinson and co-creator The Weeknd.

He is the author of the novel THE GREAT EASTERN — a sprawling, lavish anticolonial adventure, set in New York, London, Paris, India, and the North Atlantic in the late 1800s — published in 2019 by Melville House Books/Penguin Random House. Keegan-Michael Key, writing in the New York Times, said “It’s fantastic. It’s great. It’s been my favorite read of the year so far.” The novel has garnered praise from Jonathan Lethem, Walter Mosley, Jake Gyllenhaal, Janet Fitch, Steven Soderbergh, and a host of others. Rodman’s earlier novel DESTINY EXPRESS, set in the pre-War German filmmaking community, was published by Atheneum and blurbed by Thomas Pynchon, who called it “daringly imagined, darkly romantic—a moral thriller”; it was also endorsed by Samuel Fuller and Harlan Ellison. Both novels are being reissued on May 19, 2026 by Rare Bird Books/Unnamed Press and distributed by Simon & Schuster.

In 2013, in recognition of his contributions, Rodman was appointed a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres [Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters] of the French Republic; and in 2023, in recognition of further accomplishments, promoted to Officier. He was also the sole 2018 inductee to the Final Draft Screenwriters Hall of Fame. In 2020 he was given USC’s Associates Award for Artistic Achievement, “the highest honor the University bestows on its members for significant artistic impact,” as well as the Walter Wolf Award for his advocacy of free speech and academic freedom.

Rodman is an accomplished home barista and a lapsed or recovering post-punk guitarist. If you were in lower Manhattan back in the day, you perhaps saw him performing with the bands Arsenal, MADE IN USA, and Soul Sharks at venues ranging from Irving Plaza and Hurrah’s to TR3 and CBGBs.