A year-round book festival dedicated to great conversations with today's best writers.

At the National Writers Series, we host monthly, up-close-and-personal conversations with America’s best writers. Recently, Livability.com named Traverse City #6 on its list of Top 10 Cities for Book Lovers, and Publishers Weekly ran a full-page feature entitled “Traverse City is For Book Lovers.”

Founded in 2009 by New York Times best-selling author Doug Stanton (Horse Soldiers, In Harm’s Way), investigative journalist Anne Stanton and attorney Grant Parsons, the National Writers Series is dedicated to bringing to life great conversations with today’s best-selling authors, journalists, and premier storytellers in a lively setting.

Authors tell us that being at NWS was the best stop on their national book tours. Some were so impressed that they are returning in 2012 as guest interviewers in another new NWS program called Guest Host Spotlight.

We’ve also created NWS Introduces, wherein a debut writer takes the stage with a literary star. Two authors for the price of one! We’ve brought thousands of people to downtown Traverse City, drawing audiences from Detroit and Chicago— and even fans from overseas—people who shop our local merchants.

From NWS Founder Doug Stanton
“Many things have changed in Traverse City, Michigan since I was a teenager walking Front Street and wondering how in the world I was ever going to be a writer, let alone make a living as one. I mark a bellwether moment in 1977, when I went with my father into a restaurant and ran into the novelist and poet Jim Harrison. My dad and Jim had been in grade school together and throughout my young life I had pestered Jim with letters about his books and writing. I had just been accepted, with my family’s blessing and sacrifice, to a new creative writing program at the Interlochen Arts Academy.  When I asked him what I should do to be a writer, he looked at me and said, “You can do it. Just write!” I vividly recall the moment—something clicked.

As an adult, I worked as a creative writing and English teacher at the high school, undergraduate, and graduate level, and when I could I brought writers into my classroom. If even just 5% of what the writer said rubbed off on the students, the visits were a success. I have never forgotten Jim’s generosity—or that of the dozens of writersand editors I’ve had the good fortune to meet; and I remember the diligent beneficence of my teachers whose demands made me a better writer and person.

Since that day on Front Street 32 years ago, I have often wanted to bring writers to downtown Traverse City, so that other [young] writers might be similarly inspired.” —Doug Stanton