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January 24, 2014
Presenting the 2014 Winter/Spring & Summer Seasons

The National Writers Series is pleased to announce the event lineup for the 2014 Winter/Spring & Summer seasons. The lineup includes New York Times bestselling authors, a modern day Jane Austen, the 2013 National Book Award winner for nonfiction, a critically acclaimed master of suspense, and a historical fiction novelist with a mega following. Guest hosts include Traverse City's own bestselling "Authors Next Door" and nationally recognized publishing professionals.  

The 2014 Winter/Spring & Summer seasons kick off on February 27 with New York Times bestselling author and YouTube sensation Kelly Corrigan and conclude on July 7 when the National Writers Series presents a very special event during the National Cherry Festival with Diana Gabaldon, the mega bestselling author of the wildly popular Outlander Series. The complete lineup is detailed below. 

 

Tickets for all NWS events go on sale to Friends of NWS at noon on February 6, 2014 (box office only). Tickets go on sale to the general public on February 13, 2014 for all events except Diana Gabaldon. Tickets for the Diana Gabaldon event go on sale to the general public on May 1, 2014.  

 

Event Ticket Sale Schedule:

February 6 - February 12:  All events on sale to Friends (Box Office ONLY)

February 6 - April 30: Diana Gabaldon tickets on sale to Friends (Box Office ONLY)

February 13: Tickets on sale to general public for all events except Diana Gabaldon

May 1: Tickets on sale to general public for Diana Gabaldon

 

Tickets can be purchased at the City Opera House box office, by phone at (231) 941-8082 and online at www.cityoperahouse.org.

 

Become a Friend

Being a Friend of NWS has its benefits. By becoming a Friend, you support our events and mission through a minimal contribution with big payoffs. Buy a membership for yourself and your family or give the gift of membership. Members are able to purchase tickets to events in advance of the general public. Memberships are valid for one year from the date of purchase. 

 

What are the benefits?  

  • Purchase tickets to events in advance of the general public
  • Invitations to special events and author receptions 
  • Opportunities to learn about new author guests before the general public 
  • And of course, the satisfaction of knowing that you are making a difference to young writers through your membership contribution 

Payment Options:

Online: With credit card/PayPal (click on link below)   

Phone: Call the City Opera House Box Office (231) 941-8082   
Mail:  
National Writers Series   
Friends Membership  
123 W Front Street 
Traverse City, MI 49684 
 

 

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FRIEND (Single) - $50

Purchase up to two (2) tickets per event during advance purchase weeks  

 

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FRIEND (Family) - $100

Purchase up to four (4) tickets per event during advance purchase weeks  

 

 

2014 Winter/Spring Season

 

   

Thursday, February 27 at 7 pm

KELLY CORRIGAN

With special guest host Rich Fahle


New York Times bestselling author, cancer survivor, and YouTube sensation

Kelly Corrigan is the author of The Middle Place and Lift, both New York Times bestsellers. She is a YouTube sensation whose beloved "Transcending" video has been seen by more than 5 million viewers. She is also a contributor to O: The Oprah Magazine and Good Housekeeping.

If you had asked Kelly Corrigan, after she graduated from college, whose voice she would hear in her head for the rest of her life it certainly wasn't her mother's. But now, her mother is the only one who can "lift the anvils that sit heaviest" on her. This shift began when Corrigan unexpectedly found herself a nanny of two young children after she arrived in Australia on a quest to "Become Interesting. "Corrigan chronicled her time as a nanny in suburban Sydney in her latest book Glitter and Glue -a compelling memoir about stepping out and stepping up, mothers and daughters, love and loss. Corrigan's explorations of family life and parenthood have brought her to the forefront of new American writers. Her first book, a memoir called The Middle Place, recounts her father's and her own battle with cancer.


Shortly after her own battle with breast cancer, Corrigan launched Circus Of Cancer, a how-to web site for friends and family of women with the disease.


Corrigan also created the philanthropy Notes and Words in 2010, and has since raised over $2 million for Children's Hospital & Research Center Oakland in California. Corrigan is, more than anything else, the mother of two young girls. While they're at school she writes a newspaper column, the occasional magazine article, and possible chapters of a novel.

 

Guest host Rich Fahle is the founder and CEO of Astral Road Author Media and Bibliostar.TV. 

 

Premium Reserved Seating: $35 (ticket only) $52 (ticket plus book - hardcover)

Reserved Seating: $25 (ticket only) $42 (ticket plus book - hardcover)

General Admission: $20 (ticket only) $37 (ticket plus book - hardcover)

Educator Discount: $5 off ticket price with valid ID

Student Discount:  $10 off ticket price with valid ID

   

 

 

Monday, March 17 at 7 

GEORGE PACKER 

With special guest host Benjamin Busch  

 
2013 National Book Award winner, nonfiction

George Packer became a staff writer for The New Yorker in 2003 and has covered the Iraq War for the magazine. His book The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq, was named one of the ten best books of 2005 by the New York Times and won the New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Book Award. He has also written about the atrocities committed in Sierra Leone, civil unrest in the Ivory Coast, the megacity of Lagos, and global counterinsurgency. In 2003, Packer was awarded two Overseas Press Club awards, one for his twenty-thousand-word examination of the difficulties faced during the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq, which appeared in November, 2003, and the other for his coverage of the civil war in Sierra Leone, which appeared in January, 2003.

Packer's latest book The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, which won the 2013 National Book Award for nonfiction, is a novelistic and kaleidoscopic history of the new America.

 

Whatever bound America together he argues, has slowly been unwound. He supports his argument through the stories of four main characters. "What will stay with you," writes the Christian Science Monitor, "are the book's people, people Packer never turns into ideological mascots, people who struggle to survive, to create, to improve, even as the systems of support erode around them." He deftly delineates how quickly political idealism can disappear when one becomes exposed to a world of easy money. 

  

Packer has served in the Peace Corps, in Togo, West Africa, and was a 2001-02 Guggenheim Fellow. He has contributed numerous articles, essays, and reviews on foreign affairs, American politics, and literature to the New York Times Magazine, Dissent, Mother Jones, Harpers', and other publications. He has taught writing at Harvard, Bennington, and Columbia. Packer lives in Brooklyn, New York.

 

Guest host Benjamin Busch is the author of the award-winning memoir, Dust to Dust. A former U.S. Marine Corps officer who served two combat tours in Iraq, Busch returned to the U.S. to play a Marine in HBO's Generation Kill. As an actor, he is best known for his appearances in Homicide, The Wire, Generation Kill, and The Beast. Busch received a Purple Heart medal in 2005 for combat wounds sustained in Ramadi, Iraq. Ben lives in Reed City, Michigan, with his wife, historian Tracy Busch, and two young daughters

 

Premium Reserved Seating: $35 (ticket only) $46 (ticket plus book - trade paper)

Reserved Seating: $25 (ticket only) $36 (ticket plus book - trade paper)

General Admission: $20 (ticket only) $31 (ticket plus book - trade paper)

Educator Discount: $5 off ticket price with valid ID

Student Discount:  $10 off ticket price with valid ID

 

Tuesday, April 8 at 7 pm

STEVE LUXENBERG

With special guest host Mardi Link
Presented in partnership with the Michigan Humanities Council 
 

2013 - 14 Great Michigan Read & 2010 Michigan Notable Book   

"The secret emerged, without warning or provocation, on an ordinary April afternoon in 1995."
 
Beth Luxenberg was an only child. Or so everyone thought. Six months after Beth's death, her secret emerged. It had a name: Annie.  Beth's son Steve set out to discover the reasons that his mother would hide her sister and his pursuit resulted in Annie's Ghosts: A Journey Into a Family Secret - a book that is part memoir, part detective story, and part history. Through personal letters and photographs, official records and archival documents, as well as dozens of interviews, readers will revisit his mother's world in the 1930s and 1940s in search of how and why the secret was born.   
 

Employing his skills as a journalist while struggling to maintain his empathy as a son, Luxenberg pieces together the story of his mother's motivations, his aunt's unknown life, and the times in which they lived. His search takes him to imperial Russia and Depression-era Detroit, through the Holocaust in Ukraine and the Philippine war zone, and back to the hospitals where Annie and many others were lost to memory.

 

Annie's Ghosts was chosen as the 2013-14 Great Michigan Read book and was named to The Washington Post's Best Books of 2009 list.  It was also honored as a Michigan Notable Book for 2010 by the Library of Michigan. Luxenberg has worked for more than 30 years as a newspaper editor and reporter and is currently an associate editor at the Washington Post and a graduate of Harvard College.

  

Guest host Mardi Link is the author of Bootstrapper, a memoir from Knopf. Her first book, When Evil Came to Good Hart, was published in 2008 by the University of Michigan Press and spent four months on the Heartland Bestseller List. Her second book, Isadore's Secret chronicles the mysterious disappearance of a Felician nun from her convent in 1907. It was named a Michigan Notable Book, a Great Lakes Great Read, and also spent several months on the Heartland Bestseller List. She lives on a hobby farm near Traverse City.

 

 

The Great Michigan Read is a biennial program of the Michigan Humanities Council in which they partner with schools, libraries, museums, religious organizations and other organizations in Michigan for a statewide reading discussion. Each program focuses on a new title - written by a Michigan author or based in Michigan, selected by a statewide committee. This reading initiative aims to connect us as Michiganians by exploring our history, our present and our future as discussed in a single literary title.  

 

 

Premium Reserved Seating: $35 (ticket only) $46 (ticket plus book - trade paper)

Reserved Seating: $25 (ticket only) $36 (ticket plus book - trade paper)

General Admission: $20 (ticket only) $31 (ticket plus book - trade paper)

Educator Discount: $5 off ticket price with valid ID

Student Discount:  $10 off ticket price with valid ID

 

   


Thursday April 24 at 7 pm

ANCHEE MIN  

With special guest host Ron Hogan   
Presented in partnership with the International Affairs Forum

 

  

 "A wild, passionate and fearless American writer."  --The New York Times 

Anchee Min was born in Shanghai in 1957. At seventeen she was sent to a labor collective, where a talent scout for Madame Mao's Shanghai Film Studio recruited her to work as a movie actress. She moved to the United States in 1984. Her first memoir, Red Azalea, was an international bestseller, published in twenty-seven countries. She has since published six novels, including Empress Orchid, Becoming Madame Mao, and, most recently, Pearl of China.

It's been 20 years since Anchee Min made her literary debut with Red Azalea, her acclaimed memoir of growing up in China during the violent trauma of the Cultural Revolution. Two decades later her follow-up memoir, The Cooked Seed, picks up where Red Azalea left off. She arrives in America in 1984 with $500 in her pocket, no English and a plan to study art in Chicago. Min teaches herself English by watching Sesame Street, keeps herself afloat working five jobs at once, lives in unheated rooms, suffers rape, collapses from exhaustion, marries poorly and divorces. But she also gives birth to her daughter, Lauryann, who will inspire her and finally root her in her new country.

 

Min's eventual successes - her writing career, a daughter at Stanford, a second husband she loves - are remarkable, but it is her struggle throughout toward genuine selfhood that elevates this dramatic, classic immigrant story to something powerfully universal.

 

Min's writing has been praised for its raw, sharp language and historical accuracy. Min credits the English language with giving her a means to express herself, arming her with the voice and vocabulary to write about growing up during China's Cultural Revolution. "There was no way for me to describe those experiences or talk about those feelings in Chinese," she has said of a language too burdened by Maoist rhetoric. Today, she writes candidly about events she was once encouraged to bury.

 

Guest host Ron Hogan helped create the literary Internet by launching Beatrice.com in 1995. He maintains an active presence in New York City's literary scene, hosting and curating events that introduce readers to great writers, from Lady Jane's Salon (the first monthly reading series dedicated to romance fiction) to the Author/Blogger series at Brooklyn's Greenlight Bookstore. He's also a contributing editor at Shelf Awareness, and has written book reviews and feature stories for publications like Tor.com, The Dallas Morning News, and The Daily Beast. 

 

 

This event is presented in partnership with the International Affairs Forum in recognition of their 2014 focus on China that culminates in the region's first Conference on China, "China Today: Competitor or Partner?" (June 5 & 6).     

 

Premium Reserved Seating: $50 (ticket only) $61 (ticket plus book - trade paper)

Reserved Seating: $35 (ticket only) $46 (ticket plus book - trade paper)

General Admission: $25 (ticket only) $36 (ticket plus book- trade paper)

Educator Discount: $5 off ticket price with valid ID

Student Discount:  $10 off ticket price with valid ID

 

 

Thursday, May 29 at 7 pm

EMILY GIFFIN  

With special guest host to be announced   

   

   

 "A modern day Jane Austen"  --Vanity Fair

  

After just six novels Emily Giffin has garnered a huge and loyal following. Her last three books have sold more than 400,000 copies each in hardcover and eBook alone, and she has debuted as high as #2 on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list. Vanity Fair likened her to a modern day Jane Austen "who has deftly traversed the topics of love, lost love, marriage, motherhood, betrayal, forgiveness and redemption."

 

Her debut novel Something Borrowed, was made into a movie starring Kate Hudson and John Krasinski. That novel has sold more than 2.2 million copies. Her latest novel The One and Only is written with intelligence, warmth, and wit. It's a luminous novel about the choices we make in life and love, for better or worse.

 

Giffin, a Chicago native, graduated summa cum laude from Wake Forest University and the University of Virginia School of Law. After law school, she moved to Manhattan and practiced litigation at a large firm for several years while she paid back her school loans, wrote a novel in her very limited spare time, and dreamed of becoming a writer. She quit her job, moved to London to write fulltime and her dream became a reality when Something Borrowed hailed as a "heartbreakingly honest debut" with "dead-on dialogue, real-life complexity and genuine warmth," became a surprise sensation, and Giffin vowed never to practice law again. Her first five novels, all filled with her endearingly flawed characters and emotional complexity, have been translated into twenty-nine languages, with five million copies in print worldwide.

 

Giffin now resides with her husband and three young children in Atlanta, where she received the Georgia Debut Author of the Year Award.

 

Premium Reserved Seating: $35 (ticket only) $53 (ticket plus book - hardcover)

Reserved Seating: $25 (ticket only) $43 (ticket plus book - hardcover)

General Admission: $20 (ticket only) $38 (ticket plus book - hardcover)

Educator Discount: $5 off ticket price with valid ID

Student Discount:  $10 off ticket price with valid ID

 

 

Tuesday, June 10 at 7 pm

DANIEL JAMES BROWN   

With special guest Lucas Wittmann

 

 The nautical version of Chariots of Fire 

 

Daniel James Brown's book The Boys in the Boat tells the dramatic story of the American rowing team that stunned the world at Hitler's 1936 Berlin Olympics.

 

Brown follows the exploits of the University of Washington's eight-man crew, whose national dynasty culminated in Olympic gold, transformed the sport and grabbed the attention of millions of Americans.

 

Brown relays the compelling story of nine working class boys - the sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers - who defeated elite rivals first from eastern and British universities and finally the German crew rowing for Adolph Hitler. Brown has drawn on the boys' own diaries and journals, their photos and memories of a once-in-a-lifetime shared dream, to tell the irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times. 

 

It's the improbable, intimate story of a group of boys from the American west who, in the depths of the great depression, showed the world what true grit really meant.

 

As a writer Brown says that his primary interest is in bringing compelling historical events to life vividly and accurately, which he has masterfully done in this fast paced and emotional snapshot that has spent more than 22 weeks on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list and more than 10 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

 

Brown is also the author ofUnder a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894 and The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride. He resides outside of Seattle, Washington with his wife, two daughters, and an assortment of cats, dogs, chickens, and honeybees. When not writing he is likely to be birding, gardening, fly fishing, reading American history, or chasing bears away from the bee hives.

 

Guest host Lucas Wittmann is the Literary Editor and Senior Articles Editor at Newsweek and The Daily Beast. He oversees the National Magazine Award-winning Book Beast, a leading online book section. Prior to the Beast, he worked in publishing at W.W. Norton & Company.

 

Premium Reserved Seating: $35 (ticket only) $46 (ticket plus book - trade paper)

Reserved Seating: $25 (ticket only) $36 (ticket plus book - trade paper)

General Admission: $20 (ticket only) $31 (ticket plus book - trade paper)

Educator Discount: $5 off ticket price with valid ID

Student Discount:  $10 off ticket price with valid ID

 

 

Thursday, June 26 at 7 pm

KARIN SLAUGHTER 

With special guest host Elizabeth Buzzelli
 

 

Critically acclaimed "master of suspense"

 

Bestselling author Karin Slaughter is one of crime fiction's most celebrated award-winning writers, widely regarded as a literary force who consistently delivers character driven, nail biting suspense novels with psychological intensity. 

 

This summer the critically acclaimed and New York Times bestselling master of suspense delivers her first stand alone novel, Cop Town, a thrilling tale of crime and struggle set in Atlanta in the mid-1970s. Cop Town is an atmospheric nail-biter from the author that the Huffington Post called "an exemplary storyteller" and "one of the great talents of the 21st century."

 

Slaughter's first novel Blindsighted became an international success, was published in almost 30 languages, and made the Crime Writers' Association's Dagger Award shortlist for "Best Thriller Debut" of 2001.  She is the author of the Will Trent series that takes place in Atlanta and features GBI special agent Will Trent, his partner Faith Mitchell, and Angie Polaski.  She also pens the Grant County series set in rural Georgia, which stars Dr. Sara Linton, the town's pediatrician and coroner, Jeffrey Tolliver, her wayward ex-husband and chief of police, and Lena Adams, the county's only female detective.

 

Slaughter is a native Georgian and when not promoting her books domestically and abroad, always returns home to Atlanta, Georgia where she splits her time between the kitchen and the living room. Her books have sold 30 million worldwide to date and she is the only author in the history of the Dutch bestseller list to have eight titles on the list, including the number one spot.

 

Guest host Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli resides on the shores of a little lake in northwest northern Michigan. She teaches creative writing at Northwestern Michigan College and at writers' conferences around the country. Her novels include: Gift of Evil (Bantam), Dead Dancing Women, Dead Floating Lovers, Dead Sleeping Shaman, and Dead Dogs and Englishmen (Midnight Ink).  

 

Premium Reserved Seating: $35 (ticket only) $52 (ticket plus book - hardcover)

Reserved Seating: $25 (ticket only) $42 (ticket plus book - hardcover)

General Admission: $20 (ticket only) $37 (ticket plus book - hardcover)

Educator Discount: $5 off ticket price with valid ID

Student Discount:  $10 off ticket price with valid ID

  

 

2014 Summer Season

 

Monday, July 7 at 7 pm

DIANA GABALDON

With special guest host to be announced
Presented in partnership with the National Cherry Festival

 

"Big, Fat, Historical Fiction, � la James Clavell and James Michener."

 

The adventure began in 1991 with Diana Gabaldon's first novel, Outlander, which became a wildly popular historical, sci-fi, adventure, romance, and fantasy series. Readers have been hanging on the edge of their seats ever since for the next thrilling installment of Claire and Jamie's story. The seven book series has sold more than 20 million copies and has been published in 26 countries and 23 languages, worldwide.

In the eighth and latest installment, Written in my Own Heart's Blood, Jamie and Claire's story continues as it follows Gabaldon's characters through revolutionary Philadelphia and onto the battlefields, as Jamie makes a dramatic return to Claire's side, a new army sweeps the city, and romance and violence brew. This enthralling adventure carries us through betrayal and redemption, death and danger, and through the perilous waves of a family's loves and loyalties.

 

In essence Gabaldon describes her series as "Big, Fat, Historical Fiction, � la James Clavell and James Michener," that consistently defies being summarized in 25 words or less. Salon.com describes it as "The smartest historical sci-fi adventure-romance story ever written by a science Ph.D. with a background in scripting 'Scrooge McDuck' comics."

 

In addition to the Outlander Series Gabaldon has also written several books in a sub-series featuring Lord John Grey in the Lord John Series, a collection of short fiction, and a graphic novel titled The Exile. She is also working on a contemporary mystery series, set in Phoenix. Her book A Breath of Snow and Ashes, won a Quill Award and the Corinne International Book Prize.

 

A TV series based on the Outlander series is currently filming and will premiere on Starz in 2014.

Galbadon has earned three degrees: a B.S. in Zoology, a M.S. in Marine Biology, and a Ph.D in Ecology. 

 

The National Writers Series is pleased to present an evening in conversation with another one of America's finest authors during the National Cherry Festival. Previous guests include Mitch Albom, Janet Evanovich, Mario Batali and Elmore Leonard.

 

 

Premium Reserved Seating: $100 (ticket only) $123 (ticket plus book - hardcover)

Reserved Seating: $50 (ticket only) $73 (ticket plus book - hardcover)

General Admission: $30 (ticket only) $53 (ticket plus book - hardcover)

Educator Discount: $5 off ticket price with valid ID

Student Discount:  $10 off ticket price with valid ID

 

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