Howard A. Rodman 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. Jonathan Lethem calls it “A historical phantasmagoria and ripping adventure. Like twelve of your favorite movies at once, in full Sensurround." Brian Evenson, writing in the Los Angeles Review of Books, called it "a kind of return to what adventurous literature used to be.”
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." Kirkus called it “caviar for the art-film buff.” Set in Berlin in March 1933, it explores the lives of legendary filmmaker Fritz Lang, and his wife/collaborator Thea von Harbou, under the press of the newly installed fascist regime, in a week where the choices are stark: stay and make films for the Nazis, or leave everything behind and face an uncertain future in another country.
Both novels are being reissued — for the first time in paperback — by Rare Bird Books/Unnamed Press on May 19, 2026.
Rodman also contributed the afterword to Jean-Patrick Manchette's NO ROOM AT THE MORGUE from New York Review Classics, and a chapter of the graphic novel anthology BLONDIE: AGAINST THE ODDS, in which Rodman used the Blondie song "Atomic" to explore the Lower East Side love story of the young Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
As a screenwriter, 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 is vice president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; a 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.
Working with the Library Foundation of Los Angeles and USC, Rodman has conducted public conversations with writers Tom Wolfe, Walter Mosley, Ricky Jay, Geoff Dyer, Robert Polito, Lena Dunham, Spike Jonze, Vince Gilligan, Matthew Weiner, Paul Thomas Anderson, Jean-Claude Carrière, Robert Towne, John Sayles, Mark Z. Danielewski, John McWhorter, Jeannette Seaver, Joan Schenkar, and Lady Antonia Fraser.
In the late 70s and early 80s, Rodman was a guitarist in several lower Manhattan post-punk bands, including Arsenal and Made in USA. Rodman's 2011 celebration of the centennial of the French silent cinema arch-villain Fantômas took him to Yale, Brown, the New School, and City Lights Books.
In 2013, in recognition of his contributions, he was named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres [Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters] by the government of France, and ten years later promoted to the rank of Officier. He was also the 2018 inductee to the Final Draft Screenwriters Hall of Fame. At USC he received the Walter Wolf Award, honoring his commitment to academic freedom, and the Associates Award, the highest honor the University bestows on creative work.
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