Sara Nelson

Sara Nelson is an American publishing industry figure who is an editor and book reviewer and consultant and columnist, and is currently the editorial director at Amazon.com. Nelson is notable for having been editor in chief at the book industry's chief trade publication Publishers Weekly from 2005–2009 during a time of wrenching restructuring and industry downsizing. After that, she was book editor at Oprah's O Magazine. Her book So Many Books, So Little Time was published in 2003. Her views have been widely reported in numerous publications such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, and she has appeared on television broadcasts including CBS's The Early Show. She has written for the Wall Street Journal and the Huffington Post about publishing industry trends and has been described as a "lively presence within the book publishing industry." She is an extensive reader and has been described as a "lover of books."

Beginnings

Nelson attended Phillips Academy in Andover and graduated in 1974. She wrote about books and publishing at the New York Post, the New York Observer, Glamour magazine, and held editorial positions at Self, Inside.com, and Book Publishing Report. Nelson married and had a child and is a fierce advocate for respect for working mothers. Women struggled with ways to juggle careers and families, and stay-at-home moms and working mothers jostled over women's roles in the home, sometimes termed in the media as the Mommy Wars. Nelson wrote:

Sara Nelson (union leader)

Sara Nelson is the International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO. A United Airlines flight attendant since 1996, she previously served as AFA's International Vice President for a term beginning January 1, 2011. Today, AFA-CWA represents nearly 42,000 flight attendants at 19 airlines.

Early career

Nelson has been a flight attendant with United Airlines from August, 1996 through the present. Soon after beginning her career, based in Boston for United Airlines, Nelson became an activist in the Boston AFA Local. She served there in a variety of roles including the elected position of Council Representative. In 2002 Nelson was tapped by AFA leaders at United Airlines to serve as Communications Chair.

In nearly 10 years as the union's chief spokesperson for United flight attendants, Nelson played a central role in the union's strategic response to every major event affecting the airline industry and, by extension, the members she helped to represent. In 2002, a year after the devastating impact of the September 11 Attacks rocked the airline industry, the SARS outbreak devastated international air travel. Airlines including United Airlines undertook cost cutting measures, and Nelson served as the primary spokesperson for the union during those extensive pre-bankruptcy reorganization negotiations. By December 2002 when United Airlines filed the largest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history, Nelson was leading both the internal and external communications response to what would become one of the longest corporate bankruptcies when it finally ended over three years later. When United used the bankruptcy to terminate the flight attendants pension plan, Nelson announced AFA's intent to engage in a strike.