March 29, 2010

Nikki Stern is a marketing executive, writer, blogger (who has developed a distinctive voice on her blog 1 Woman’s Vu), and activist (the widow of Jim Portorti -- who perished on 9/11 -- Stern was the first executive director of the organization Familes of September 11). Stern was generous, forthcoming, and engagingly opinionated when agreeing to be interviewed for Watching the World Change (see pages 71-73).

This June, Stern is coming out with a new book, Because I Say So: The Dangerous Appeal of Moral Authority (Bascom Hill Books). She has kindly sent along galleys and I highly recommend it. The book is part cultural criticism, part psychological memoir, part collection of cogent essays (the chapter questioning the notion of “The Nobility of Suffering” is particularly notable).

Stern is always perceptive and frank and, quite often, boundary-breaking, as in this much-talked-about 2006 essay for The New York Times, “Dust to Dust: An Affair Post 9/11.”