Episode 27: Jon Sternfeld

“He knew how pain kept inside multiplies, and how pain shared subtracts,” writes podcast guest Jon Sternfeld in the opening bars of Michael K. Williams’s haunting new posthumous memoir Scenes from My Life. Jon was midway through his work with the electrifying actor, known to television audiences for his career-defining turns as Omar Little in “The Wire” and Chalky White in “Boardwalk Empire,” as well as for his Emmy-nominated roles in “The Night Of” and “Lovecraft Country,” when Williams died in September 2021 from a drug overdose. It fell to Jon to complete the project on his own—an intimidating task the veteran ghostwriter was reluctant to take on at first. “I can’t tell you how strange this is and has been,” he says. “When Mike first passed, I was just dealing with the shock and grief. I wasn’t even thinking about things like deadlines or promotion. And now, I’m speaking about his legacy, and while I feel outmatched by the responsibility of it, I do accept it.”

Join us as Jon Sternfeld reflects on his relationship with the late actor and activist, as well as on his other collaborations, including A Stone of Hope, with the noted residential care advocate Jim St. Germain; Crisis Point, with former U.S. senators Trent Lott and Tom Daschle; and the forthcoming Marked For Life, with attorney Isaac Wright Jr., who defends the wrongly accused in the same courtroom where he was sentenced to life in prison.

For more on We Build the Block, the organization co-founded by Michael K. Williams to reduce violence and build community in our inner cities visit https://webuildtheblock.org/. For more on Jon Sternfeld, visit his official website and follow him on Twitter.

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