Stuart is Executive Director of the Cape Cod Writers Center as of 2024.

[citation needed] Stuart was a contributor to the New York Times from 1977-2001 in the Westchester, Long Island, Travel, National Career Survey, Education Life and News in Review sections under the byline of Nancy Rubin.

Mount Vernon College (now part of George Washington University) conferred a Doctor of Humane Letters upon Stuart in 1995 for her biography of Marjorie Merriweather Post, American Empress.

Stuart served as a writer for Cinetel Productions in A&E Network's America's Castles between 1996-1998, for which she won an Excellence in Writing Telly Award.

From 1999-2001 she served as a writer-producer for Scripps Production's Restore America series for HGTV and received two additional Telly Awards.