A year-round book festival dedicated to great conversations with today's best writers.
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Vince Gilligan Accepts Writers Guild of America Award
February 21, 2012
Pete Hammond, deadline.com | Sunday February 19, 2012
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‘Breaking Bad‘s’ Vince Gilligan accepted the television Drama Series honor saying, “We wouldn’t have a show without Bryan Cranston.”
UpNorth TV Program Alert: NWS: An Evening with Vince Gilligan to be broadcast
February 16, 2012
The January NWS program, “An Evening with Vince Gilligan” will be cablecast on the following dates/times on UpNorth TV
Sunday 2/19/12 @ 10 pm
Tuesday 2/21/12 @ 10 pm
Wednesday 2/22/12 @ 11:30 pm
Thursday 2/23/12 @ 11 pm
Doug Stanton Interviews Jack Driscoll
February 15, 2012
February 2012
Traverse City National Writer Series’ Doug Stanton interviews Jack Driscoll, former instructor at the Interlochen Arts Academy, about his new book.
Janet Leahy, A Writer I Love: Part II
February 15, 2012
Neely Swanson, No Meaner Place | February 9, 2012
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An interview with past NWS guest Janet Leahy, TV writer and show runner, and most recently of ‘Mad Men’
The Story Continues for Traverse City’s National Writers Series
February 14, 2012
Jeff Smith, MyNorth.com | February 13, 2012
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Northern Michigan: How author Doug Stanton’s great idea for the Traverse City National Writers Series is turning heads in the publishing industry.
Book News Alert
February 14, 2012
Jack Driscoll Book Party | Horizon Books
Saturday, February 18, 5:30-8:00 p
If you’ve ever met Jack Driscoll, you know that he is one of the kindest, most interesting people you could meet, possessing a sense of personal and artistic integrity that I’ve always marveled at. He has just published a new book of fiction (by our friends at Wayne State University press) that is garnering rave reviews nationwide, and he’s embarking on a big book tour to talk about The World Of A Few Minutes Ago.
Jack’s book party takes place this Saturday, February 18, 5:30-8:00 PM, at Horizon Books. This is the first major book tour Jack’s done in quite awhile– in fact, I don’t think he’s ever come into Traverse City to do a solo reading. This is a once-in-a-decade chance to meet and hear one of America’s great prose stylists. His book of short stories is beautiful. If you want to see Michigan and the Midwest up close, in all its humor and poignancy, get Jack’s book. He has written novels, short stories, and poems and won major awards for all of these. But this book, The World Of A Few Minutes Ago, has received some of his biggest reviews and endorsements. It’s the kind of book you carry around and read aloud from. Jack started his writing career as a poet and every sentence he writes matters, effortlessly.
I’ve known Jack since high school, when he was my first writing teacher at Interlochen Arts Academy (from which he recently retired after 30-plus years of teaching there). I still remember the lecture he gave about Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, or about a W.D. Snodgrass poem, or the introduction he made to us (our class of high school freshmen– freshmen!) with poet Gary Snyder, when Gary Snyder appeared in our class as a visiting writer. Jack’s teaching changed my life as a young writer, as well as the lives of hundreds of other poets, fiction writers, memoirists, editors– you name it. His former students have spread out across the U.S. and are working today. All of this was possible because of Jack’s brilliance as writer. He is also one of the best readers of his own work that you will hear.
I remember standing under the M-22 bridge with Jack on more nights than I can count, fishing for steelhead trout. I often didn’t know what I was doing back then, but he was patient– and a lot of fun. We’d wade out in the deep pools down by the river mouth, where the Platte River enters Lake Michigan, and fish until dawn and then drive back through the village of Honor, Michigan, and stop at Money’s restaurant for breakfast. It all seems like another time, and it is, pre-Facebook– we said little, no one knew where we were. It’s amazing how powerful silence can be. Jack’s readings– and I’ve heard them– are filled with dramatic moments when quiet, private people do surprising things at the last minute.
This book party is also a homecoming of sorts for Jack, as he and Lois Driscoll, his wife (presently a much-loved history teacher at Interlochen Arts Academy), took part in the “book brigade” when Horizon moved to their present location in 1993, which I’m told involved people passing books hand to hand across Front Street and into the new building. Come down Saturday night, February 18, to the store and welcome them back!
Book Signing : Support Hickory Hills
February 13, 2012
SAVE THE DATE! Saturday, February 25 from 3-5 pm at Horizon Books, lower level. Hickory legends Jerry Stanek, Ted Lockwood, Vojin Baic, Barbara Sherberneau Loveland, Dave Hicks, Larry and Joey Bensley and others (along with authors Molly Tompkins and Ryan Ness) will be available to sign your books and share Hickory memories! Bring your own book or purchase one at Horizon that day. Hickory friend Sandy Blumenfeld will be providing the musical entertainment.
National Writers Series and Beyond – A Book Lover’s Trip Worth Taking
February 12, 2012
Megan Schaffer, Night Light Revue | February 11, 2012
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There’s good reason why Traverse City was recently ranked as a top city for book lovers. Not only does this lakeshore city hum a little literary tune all its own, but it also falls in line with a mighty band of independent booksellers strung in solidarity along Michigan’s stunning northern shores.
Back on the Case | Elmore Leonard Returns With ‘Raylan’
February 10, 2012
Olen Steinhauer, New York Times, Sunday Book Review | February 2, 2012
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Two-time National Writers Series featured author, Elmore Leonard, was featured on the most prime real estate for an author, the front cover of the New York Times Sunday Book Review with an article about his new book, Raylan, the basis for new, excellent FX television series, ‘Justified.’
MyNorth.com | Q & A with Vince Gilligan
February 3, 2012
Beth Milligan, mynorth.com | February 2, 2012
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Traverse City National Writers Series: Screenwriter and showrunner Vince Gilligan is the creator of one of television’s most critically acclaimed dramas, AMC’s dark hit ‘Breaking Bad’. Now entering its fifth and final season, the provocative series follows meek chemistry teacher Walter White (played by three-time Emmy-winning actor Bryan Cranston), who turns to a life of crime after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Hollywood Reporter and Paste magazine all named the show #1 on their lists of 2011 Best TV Shows, with Stephen King naming the program #1 on his list of 2011 Pop Culture Favorites, hailing it as “an American classic.”
Doug Stanton attracts well-known authors to Traverse City for National Writers Series
February 2, 2012
Neal Rubin, The Detroit News | February 2, 2012
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The Old Miami Bar might work. The badges on the wall, the black-and-white photos, the sofas around the pool table that look like customers brought them from home.
That could be a scene. Maybe something from a neighborhood, too, with a lovingly tended house next to a charred husk next to a blank spot where a family’s life used to be.
This is what Doug Stanton does: Observe things, commit them to memory or a notepad, retrieve them later and put them on a page. He’s a writer, even if he hasn’t been doing enough of that the last few years, but he can’t just stare at a laptop and expect vivid colors to show up.
…books, authors, writing front and center here in northern Michigan
February 1, 2012
Kate Bassett, Harbor Light Newspaper | February 1, 2012
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Walk along the snow-dusted sidewalks in downtown Traverse City on certain nights of the month and you’ll likely hear folks talking books. Yes, books. Not the fate of them, with e-readers and Amazon’s self-publishing schemes, but the story behind a story. The writers. The words.
