John Avlon
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John P. Avlon (b. 1973) is the author of Independent Nation: How the Vital Center is Changing American Politics. He is a columnist and associate editor for The New York Sun and worked as chief speechwriter for former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
Avlon was the youngest and longest-serving speechwriter in the Giuliani Administration as well as Deputy Communications Director. His work included helping prepare the Mayor's State of the City Addresses for 1999 through 2001. After the attacks of September 11th, he and his team were responsible for writing the eulogies for all New York City Firefighters, New York City Police Officers, Port Authority Police Officers and other emergency workers killed in the destruction of the World Trade Center. Additionally, he served on the staff of the Bilingual Education Reform Task Force, the City Hall Park Restoration Committee, and the 2001 Charter Revision Commission, which established the Office of Emergency Management as a permanent city agency.
Before his service at City Hall, Avlon worked on President Clinton’s re-election campaign. He is the managing partner of Prides Crossing Executive Communication and an adjunct lecturer at Hunter College, where he teaches a class on great speeches through history. He has lectured at Yale University, NYU, the Citadel, the Kennedy School of Government, and the State Department’s visiting journalist program. He is an advisory board member of the Citizens Union of New York, Bronx Academy of Letters, Theodore Roosevelt Association, and the Rudolph W. Giuliani Foundation for Urban Leadership.
He has appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, MSNBC, Fox News, PBS, and C-Span. His book Independent Nation was described as "a brave and compelling case for the past persistence and future dominance of American Centrism," by DLC Policy Director Ed Kilgore in Blueprint Magazine. The New York Post described it as "well-written and fun to read-and its timing couldn't be better." Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker wrote that "Americans who are fed up with the Ann Coulter/Michael Moore school of debate, and are looking for someone to articulate a common sense middle path, may have found their voice in John Avlon." His essay on the attacks of September 11th, The Resilient City was selected to conclude the anthology Empire City: New York Through the Centuries and won acclaim from Fred Siegel, the author of The Future Once Happened Here, as "the single best essay written in the wake of 9/11."
