TRAVERSE CITY — Doug Stanton remembers doing tours in support of his book, “Horse Soldiers” (later renamed “12 Strong”), and finding the events somewhat cookie cutter. So when it came to organizing an author event for him at home in Traverse City in May 2009, he and his wife, Anne Gertiser Stanton, took more of an “entertaining show on stage” approach. It was so successful that it generated $2,000 in proceeds that were donated to a local school.
That early event set the tone for the format of what grew into the nonprofit National Writers Series, matching strategically selected interviewers with featured authors. In its 15 years, NWS has hosted hundreds of events with award-winning writers in all genres and styles. They include names like Alice Walker, Ann Patchett, David Sedaris, Don Winslow, Jane Smiley, Margaret Atwood and Tom Brokaw.
“The back story was not to make it a lecture, not to make it a reading … to try to get to the heart of the matter with them [authors] on stage,” says Doug, who with Anne and local attorney Grant Parsons founded NWS in 2010. “It may not even be about the book, but about how they feel about their writing, their values, what it is they’re writing about.
“We try to ask them how it feels for them to be alive right now in America and in history.”
Doug says hosts are carefully prepped — and expected to read the book the author is touring to support.
“The show is really a conversation, and you just can’t put anybody on stage to do that,” Doug says. “Journalists make some of the best hosts. What you can’t have is a crime writer on stage who begins talking about their books together and the host begins talking about their books more than the guest author.”
Stanton meets several times with hosts to go over their questions, estimating that he spends about 20 hours preparing when he’s set to host. “This isn’t a reading or a lecture,” he says. “What you’re watching is almost like a play — two people on stage navigating a real moment.”
New York Times best-selling science writer Mary Roach has appeared on the NWS stage before and is scheduled to return Sept. 23 with her new book, “Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy.” She recalls a memorable NWS moment when she was interviewed by actor, writer and veteran Benjamin Busch and he pulled out a pair of gorilla gloves for her to wear while she was reading a passage from her book, “Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War.”
“I had to use the gorilla gloves to turn the page,” she says. “It was one of my favorite on-stage events. I think the audience enjoys that kind of freshness and spontaneity.”
Joe Hill, who’s set to appear Nov. 15 with his book, “King of Sorrow,” says his NWS appearance in 2018 has stayed with him in more ways than one.
“If you do enough appearances to promote a book, they start to blur a little and lose their distinctness,” he notes. That was not the case in Traverse City in 2018 when he sat as the subject of a Q&A with host Loren D. Estleman, who Hill describes as “one of America’s great craftsmen of crime fiction.”
“I brought a suitcase of his books on stage with me and every time he asked a question, I made him autograph one, which is how I wound up with the best collection of signed Loren D. Estleman in the country,” Hill says. “What can I say — we had fun.”
Today, the National Writers Series operates all year long featuring conversations with authors who visit Traverse City to appear before live audiences in various venues around the city — until recently, focused around the City Opera House. And at 15 years, the organization is all grown up. Anne is its executive director, managing a staff of four full-time employees and a few contractors with an annual budget of about $850,000 funded with donations, grants and sponsorships; ticket sales from events generally cover the costs of staging them. A $30,000 grant from the Wege Foundation supported the purchase of a state-of-the-art multi-camera setup that makes it possible for NWS to live stream many of its events. There’s even a six-month financial reserve in place.
“I have to say it’s been the good-hearted people of this community who have pulled us through,” says Anne, reflecting on a challenging period in 2015 when some ardent supporters threw a party and invited more than 300 who contributed enough money to keep the organization going. “I just can’t express my gratitude enough when all of these people came out of the woodwork and said, ‘Yes, we’ll support you’ and they wrote checks and we kept going.
“We would never make it without community support. We live in a great town.”
Besides offering a lineup of author events, NWS’ Raising Writers Series supports young readers and writers through writing programs and related activities along with scholarships to high school juniors and seniors in categories that include poetry, fiction, non-fiction and journalism. Classes are also geared to adults in themes like horror and fiction writing.
“The scholarship program is really important, and that came out of just my own sense of being a student here and needing scholarship money to go to Interlochen,” says Doug, who graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy where he was a creative writing and theater major. “It came from Helen Osterlin, and it was really a lifeline.” (The NWS website describes Osterlin as a generous local benefactor whose support helped fund Doug’s final year at Interlochen.)
When author Robin Wall Kimmerer was in town for a NWS event earlier in August, CBS Sunday Morning” covered her signing books at the evening event as part of a story correspondent Martha Teichner was working on. The NWS is also doing a first-time collaboration with Traverse City Tourism, bringing Antoni Porowski of “Queer Eye” fame to the City Opera House Aug. 22 as part of the inaugural Traverse City Food & Wine celebration. NWS is also presenting a panel of chefs from cooking competition shows like “Top Chef” Aug. 23 during the event.
Among them is Sarah Welch, who is reported to be opening a restaurant in Traverse City in 2026.
NWS recently released its fall 2025 schedule, which features a mix of new as well as returning authors including those with Michigan and Traverse City ties. Michigan-based author John U. Bacon’s newest book, “The Gales of November,” is about the 1975 sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior and launches in October. He has been a NWS interviewer as well as a featured author before. He’s on the fall authors’ lineup, will also be an interviewer and can’t say enough about the National Writers Series.
“They always get a great crowd and an educated crowd,” he says. “[The audience] asks smart questions and they get the jokes … but the biggest thing is Doug and Anne have built this up from nothing. It is a national centerpiece and Traverse City is lucky to have it.”