Samuel Eli Shepherd

Samuel Eli Shepherd is a passionate storyteller and multimedia journalist obsessed with everything arts and culture. Friends just call him Sam.

Sam recently worked at the Forward: the United States’ premier Jewish news publication. He wrote articles about everything from Broadway shows to political activism, all through an American Jewish lens. He also conducted research for the editor-in-chief’s e-mail newsletter, Looking Forward, which reaches over 95,000 subscribers every Friday afternoon.

Sam is a 2024 graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, where he wrote a long-form Master’s Project on the first original Yiddish play to be performed in North America in over 70 years. Prior to moving to New York City, Sam achieved first-class Honours in a Bachelor of Arts in history and literature from McGill University, where he acted as Executive Editor of the university’s largest student-run news magazine, The Bull & Bear.

When not documenting quirky human interest stories across sprawling metropoles and over-analyzing films and plays, Sam can be found running, making homemade soups and trying to meet his ever-expanding GoodReads reading challenge.

Reach him at samuelelishepherd (at) gmail (dot com.)