Creative Coast

Spreading the Word

July 28, 2020 Traverse Connect and Airloom Media Season 1 Episode 5
Creative Coast
Spreading the Word
Show Notes Transcript

The couple who became the beating heart of northern Michigan’s budding literary community. This episode features writer Doug Stanton and Co-founder and Executive Director of the National Writers Series, Anne Stanton. 

(START THEME)

Growing up in Traverse City in the 1960s, Doug Stanton knew he was going to be a writer. 

[00:27:28] From 14 I wanted to be a poet.

Problem was… He had never met a writer…

And had no idea how to become one. 

So one day Doug decided to reach out to an author named Jim Harrison who lived just up the road in Leland. 

Harrison published dozens of works during his long career… 

Including the famous novel True North

And the novella Legends of the Fall, which was later turned into a movie starring Brad Pitt. 

[00:04:58] back then I couldn't drive, of course, so I wrote him a letter to his home in Lake Michigan saying, Dear Mr. Harrison, I would love to read one of your novels. If you wouldn’t mind sending it to me, I'll pay you later when I can. And he wrote back, Dear Doug, I'm not a fucking bookstore. But here's your novel. You don't have to pay me anything. [00:05:25][26.6]

Today… mentorship… in all shapes and colors. 

I’m Tommy Andres…

And this is Creative Coast.

(THEME POST/FADE)

This podcast is all about the creative entrepreneurs who call Northern Michigan their home. 

And for many of the folks we’ve profiled so far…

It’s Traverse City’s many offerings that lured them here.

But Doug Stanton’s journey is different. 

1:02 I’m a number one New York Times bestselling author who is able to do that from his own hometown. 

Doug was born in Traverse City and wanted to stay.

But he also had aspirations to become a nationally recognized writer…

So he had to “write the book” so to speak on just how to do that.

[00:03:12] when you look at, say, a kitchen spoon. You kind of hold it up and you can see. Oh, I know how they made the spoon. They took the metal, they bent it. That turned into a cup. There's the handle. But you hold up a book. It really, if you think about it, is a mysterious object. I mean, how did they sow the pages in? How did they get all those words in between those two covers? And so what we have is what a writer makes. But what we don't often have in our lives is a pathway to find the tools and how the writer does that making. [00:03:47][34.9]

Some kids may have been put off by Jim Harrison’s gruff response to that letter requesting a book…

But not Doug. 

He was thrilled to get a copy of Harrison’s book Farmer

And years later... 

When Doug was an adult and saw Jim Harrison at the Bluebird Restaurant and Tavern in Leland… 

It was that letter that gave him the courage to approach the author in person. 

(START MUSIC)

[00:16:10] it was New Year's Eve and just after midnight and I looked down the bar and there was Jim Harrison standing, leaning against the bar. And I said, hello. [00:16:21][10.4]

Doug had started writing in high school at the Interlochen Arts Academy.

He had gone on to Hampshire College…

Got his master’s degree from the esteemed Writer’s Workshop at the University of Iowa… 

And in his mid-20s he was teaching English at a college down south. 

[00:16:21] He asked what I was doing and I said was teaching five sections of composition in Monroe, Louisiana, with a really great group of people. But that I wanted to write full time. And he said drunkenly, I think, well, that's no problem at all. If you just write something and I'll help... We'll see if we can't get it published. So I literally thought at that moment that all I had to do is quit my job in Louisiana and start writing. And I would start making a living. [00:16:54][33.4]

( MUSIC POST)

Doug went back to Louisiana and put pen to paper.

[00:16:53] And I wrote an 18 page essay // It was about, however, those things that had grown up with family history, reminiscence of my grandparents. // that was completely unpublishable and really incomprehensible and just plain bad.// I did, however, send it to Jim and true to his word. He sent it on to an editor named Terry McDonnell that Terry was Hunter Thompson's editor. He had been. Who do you work with? He'd worked at time Newsweek, he worked in Rolling Stone for a long time, worked with John Winter and he was a legend and still is in the world of editing. 

Terry McDonell had just started his own magazine called Smart. 

[00:19:03] Terry said, this is unpublishable. Send me something else. And. Is... That something else in the long run or turned out to be that essay about proposing to Anne. [00:19:17][13.5]

(START MUSIC)

Anne Stanton… Then Anne (_____), was a reporter at the Traverse City Record Eagle when she first met Doug.

[00:07:59] I grew up in Davison went to high school with Michael Moore, interestingly, and Jeff again suggested Planet of the Humans, and it was in the seventies and it was a time of rebellion and really a sense that you could make a difference in the world. So I worked... I used to write for the Davisson index and I just fell in love with journalism and in love with trying to give a voice to people who otherwise did not have a voice. [00:08:33][34.1]

But Anne took a bit of a circuitous route to her career. 

[00:08:49] my first degree was in business because I was afraid that I just couldn't make it. You know, at that time, the salaries for reporters was really low. But I decide to go back. And I did get a master's in journalism and came to the Record Eagle and that was my first job. 

So it was Anne’s first job as a reporter at the Record Eagle that brought her up to Traverse City…

And where fate would put her in the path of a dreamer still finding his way back there. 

[00:09:59] I think I was about 30 and at that time in Traverse City, there were not a lot of single 30 year olds around. And I was complaining to a sister, Debbie, and she said, well, I have a brother and he loves to write, too. And he works down in Louisiana. And I thought, oh, great, Louisiana. But she did tell him about me. And so one day just before Christmas, he walked into the newsroom, [00:10:26][18.0]

(TINY MUSIC POST - JUST A SECOND OR TWO - FADE MUSIC UNDER BUT KEEP IT GOING)

[00:10:58] I was home and I was walking by the Record Eagle down the sidewalk, and I remembered that about six months earlier, my sister Debbie had mentioned a person named Anne in the newsroom. And that's she works there. Now that I meet her at some point. So without knowing her last name, because we never met. I simply walked in and said is Anne here? Hoping that three or four different women to walk [00:11:34][35.5]

Thankfully… There was just one. 

That day Doug and Anne grabbed coffee at Woolworths…

[00:12:02] back in that time. You would walk in and there was a soda fountain and there were still selling parakeets. And so the parakeet chirping and the fluorescent lights were on. [00:12:13][11.1]

A bite at Stacie’s…

[00:12:42] It was the kind of place where Stacey didn't like to run the cash register. When you she gave you your bill and you went up and paid yourself and made your own change out of the till. [00:12:53][11.3]

And they met up again and again.

[00:13:00] Anne and I were wandering around getting to know each other during that break I had from teaching. [00:13:09][9.4]

(MUSIC POST/FADE)

It was a week later on that same break that Doug ran into Jim Harrison at the Bluebird who said…

[00:16:34] just write something and I'll help. [00:16:42][8.5]

And who connected Doug with that editor named Terry McDonell… 

[00:18:26] who'd started a magazine called Smart. [00:18:29][3.5]

For whom Doug wrote his first essay. 

[00:17:03] completely unpublishable and really incomprehensible and just plain bad. [00:17:09][5.8]

But Terry McDonell gave Doug another chance…

And thankfully Doug now had a secret weapon. 

Anne.

(START MUSIC)

As the couple got more serious, Doug moved back to Traverse City…

Where Anne helped turn him from a poet into a writer. 

[00:20:19] I had never written any prose. I mean, am I repeat that I've really never written any prose now Anne ended up teaching me everything I would know about how to interview and really what a lead was, how to spell the word lead. L e d e. What a nut graph is. [00:20:41][21.6]

But Anne didn’t just help coach Doug in writing more like a journalist…

She also inspired his first published piece which he wrote in 1990…

The year the couple was married.

It was the story of how they fell in love.

[00:14:32] this essay called Marry Me, Marry Me, that published in Smart magazine. [00:14:39][7.2]

[00:19:19] You know, what's really funny, is Doug actually was written up in the Record Eagle because he had published an article in Smart magazine, that's how Small Town it was. [00:19:30][10.8]

[00:19:31] Yeah. Yeah. You get published for being published. That's... I like that. [00:19:36][5.5]

(MUSIC POST/FADE)

Like any good character in a story, Jim Harrison pops up over and over in Doug and Anne Stanton’s life. 

In Doug’s early days as a freelance writer… His phone rang.

[00:22:36] Jim Harrison called me and said, the editor at Esquire has been fired on Friday. Terry got hired as the editor of Esquire on Monday. He said, now we all have jobs at Esquire. So I flew to New York, went to Terry’s office, and he looked at me. We've not met. And he really also knew that I had very little experience. And he said, What do you think of John Mellencamp? 

(John Mellencamp Small Town)

That is… John Cougar Mellencamp…

Who, in 1992, was trying to ditch the Cougar and was starring in his first film.  

And I said, Oh, man, John Mellencamp. He has to be my favorite, my all time favorite rock'n'roll singer of the ages. And of course, none of this is true. But I want the job so bad it goes well, OK. [00:23:16][40.9]

[00:23:35] And he said, if you can get Mellencamp to say yes, you got the job. So I walked out into the hallway and made a phone call to his publicist and I said literally, hi, this is Doug Stanton calling from Esquire magazine. Which was true, actually, because I was actually in Esquire. And I was calling from there. But she thought that I was on staff or I had some type of credentialed position. We would love to run a cover story on John Mellencamp and his new album in this movie that he's making. And she was really and I said, yeah, I guess, well, OK, I'm sure I'll say yes. So I hung up. I walked up to Terry and said Well, he's in. And Terry said Great. You got the job. [00:24:22][46.3] 

(START MUSIC)

This was the golden age of magazine journalism. 

A time when publications spent big bucks for deep dive stories. 

[00:24:24] I spent three months on the road with Mellencamp. My expenses were about thirty five thousand dollars. My fee was five thousand dollars. And by the time it was over, we both kind of liked each other. [00:24:37] But we're tired of each other. And that's how I learned to write long form magazine profile with which I really made a living for about eight years at Esquire. [00:24:51][00:24:37][12.9]

[00:25:17] So Anne tell me a little bit about coaching Doug. So he comes to you and he's like, I've got this work, but I don't necessarily know what I'm doing. I'm a writer, but I'm not a journalist necessarily yet. So how do you how do you coach Doug? How do you work with Doug to make this happen? [00:25:34][16.5]

[00:25:36] You know, when he first started writing magazine articles, I mostly really helped this structure. And, you know, beginning, middle and end, and they'd be, you know, two parallel storylines. So so Doug at first was a little skeptical. [00:25:52][16.2]

[00:25:54] Am I a good student, though? [00:25:54][0.7]

[00:25:55] Yeah. But then he would send this story in and then the editor would say exactly the same thing. And I would say, see, told you. Skip the embarrassment the next time and just... No, I'm kidding. . But. But, you know, and I've learned a lot from Doug in terms of writing and writing, so it sounds like it's really happening just then by just taking in all by super reporting that you can really recreate a scenario. [00:26:22][26.9]

[00:26:24] So we've worked well together. You know, working together is the easy part. The other part, it's what's for dinner. [00:26:34][9.7]

[00:26:35] Yeah, I love working with Anne and I think she feels the same way. Yeah, we have more trouble grocery shopping.

(MUSIC POST/FADE  )

Doug became a contributing editor for Outside and Men’s Journal in addition to Esquire… 

And he has some crazy stories from those days.

He played basketball with George Clooney…

Did Yoga with Sting.

And he made quite a name for himself. 

[00:33:14] some editor called and said, Denzel Washington wants you to write a profile about him. I said, Denzel Washington does. Yeah. He was reading a profile you wrote on a plane with his agent. And so then pick up the magazine so they could order up their own profile. And I'd gotten really good at it because it's basically their character sketches. And it was always satisfying the kind of secret novelist in me to do it. But I also knew that I was writing things that people were reading at O'Hare Airport and probably walking away from and not pondering over for a while. So when my editor. An editor for Men's Journal called Sid Evans. I went down to Indianapolis, Indiana, and met a hundred and twenty four survivors of USS Indianapolis. [00:34:03][48.5]

(START MUSIC)

In the late 1990s, Doug got an assignment that would change his life. 

His editor asked him to do a sort of “where are they now” profile on survivors of the USS Indianapolis…

Which sunk in shark infested waters after being struck by Japanese torpedoes in 1945.  

[00:34:05] People listening may know that story from Jaws at the time, I thought it was an apocryphal story that a ship carried the components of the atomic bomb which would be dropped on Hiroshima, that the ship was sunk, that they survived in the water for five days. And that shark attack. You know, it was a murderous event and daily for them. And that the Robert Shaw, Captain Quinn in the movie Jaws is a fictional survivor of this incident. [00:34:42][37.0]

Quickly into Doug’s research, he realized that there was a lot more than a magazine feature to the story of the USS Indianapolis.

So he started to write a book.

With a little help and guidance from Anne.

[00:26:44] She was instrumental, we literally taped, printed out seventy five pages of the book and got Scotch tape and laid them on the kitchen table and taped them end to end so it looked like a filmstrip might be seven pages in a strip. Did that make 10 strips and then tape those two, the dining room wall. [00:27:20][35.9][00:27:24] because remember, I started out as a 14, I want to be a poet. So I've paid a lot of attention to language and image and. And just and I think cultivating an ear for dialog and so on, a rhythm, but its structure was it was not and in some ways still out my strong point. So and and I was doing would look at this. And when you open the door, by the way, to the house or window, the entire all the the tape pages would kind of wave like a like go underwater kelp bed. [00:28:00][36.5]

(MUSIC POST/FADE)

It was a hard slog, but Doug finished his first book called “In Harm’s Way.” It would publish in 2001.

  But before copies even hit the shelves, Doug knew his life had changed.  

[00:39:43] The day that I knew that I didn't have to write profiles of movie stars and singers anymore was when // my friend // called me out of the blue and he said Doug, turn on CNN, Tom Brokaw's talking about your book on Larry King. I'm like, what? Because the book hadn't been published yet. And he goes, Yeah, I go, Dave, have you been drinking? He goes, Yes, I have been drinking. But he's still talking about your book. [00:40:48][29.9]

[00:41:41] When I got the letter from Tom Brokaw, when I heard that he was talking about my to be published book on on CNN, I knew that maybe I could be a book writer from now on. So that's what I set out to do. [00:41:59][17.3]

(START MUSIC)

“In Harm’s Way” spent more than 6 months on the New York Times bestseller list…

And it turned Doug from a writer into an author.

But book ideas are not easy to come by…

So after the media blitz for “In Harm’s Way” had died down…

Doug and Anne decided to help Anne’s old friend from high school with a little project. 

[00:42:57] I think the first thing Doug did was volunteer for the film festival and put that together with Michael Moore and a photographer, John Robert Williams. 

Doug and Anne were two of the founders of the Traverse City Film Festival…

Working with famous documentary filmmaker Michael Moore to revitalize the State Theater in the center of downtown…

And bring an annual slate of dozens of films to the area.

We used to talk about it over dinner. How much fun it would be. And then one day we just made a decision. Let's do it. And we say there was six weeks to get it done. And then Doug had to go to Afghanistan. But we pulled a lot of friends together to volunteer. It was crazy. [00:43:26][29.1]

(MUSIC POST)

Doug went to Afghanistan to work on a new book called “Horse Soldiers.”

It was about a small band of Special Forces soldiers who were ordered to ride into Afghanistan on horseback to fight the Taliban just after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. 

It was published in 2005…

Got tons of press and was even turned into a film called “12 Strong” by Jerry Bruckheimer. 

(Movie clip)

But when Doug traveled around the country on his book tour… He started to notice a disconnect. 

[00:48:20] I had traveled around the country on this big tour for Horse Soldiers and was finding, for instance, I was in Dallas and I had. Oh, I don't know. Twenty people show up and there were thirty six folding chairs set out at a Barnes and Noble in Dallas on a Thursday rainy evening at six p.m.. Now, the same time, the book is number two on The New York Times list, which is not easy to do. So it's selling thousands of copies, yet people aren't meeting me at the bookstores. Well, there's lots of other things going on in life. So I started asking as I traveled around the country. The book escorts the people, pick you up at the airport and pick up all writers and shuttle them around to interviews. So what was working? So I collected all like cut it all the gold bits, the best the sweetest parts of every author event that these people had witness and came back and that’s how we crafted the National Writers Series.

Doug had just helped launch the Traverse City Film Festival…

Which brought the work of some of the best filmmakers in the world to Northern Michigan.

So he thought…

Why not do something similar for authors?

Unfortunately that epiphany hit him in the midst of having drinks with friends. 

[00:46:23] Anne and I kind of talked about this, but I have to take I have to plead guilty to impulsively announcing this thing called the National Writers Series, after an event or at an event with Elmore Leonard and his son, Peter Leonard. [00:46:46][23.3]

[00:46:54] Well, I'd put together an event while he was on the road for book tour for Horse Soldiers, while I was working full time at Northern Express. I organized this big event and I made it look so easy. That Doug then not invited Elmore Leonard to town in July. And I could see what was cooking in his mind. I said, Doug, do not do not please organize the National Writers series, because I.. he'd been talking to a friend about doing a logo and said, you know, you did your volunteer thing at the film festival. So let's just take a break. That night, much to my surprise, he stood at the lectern and said, this is so much fun. Let's do it again. We're going to start the National Writers series in Traverse City. And that's how it all began. [00:47:46][51.7]

[00:47:46] Again, it's a small town. The next morning, the banner headline of the front page was Stanton Announces Writers Series. And now my goose was cooked because you really had to go through with it. [00:47:58][11.6] 

(START MUSIC)

Doug’s vision was to create a new kind of event for writers…

One that would get them out of the bookstores and into a theater.

[00:51:08] typically an author that is kind of boring. You go into a bookstore. The author would drone on for 40 minutes at the lectern with a Styrofoam cup of water, read from their book, not really take any questions or maybe a few and then sign books and leave, you know. And that worked. But we're competing now as so many other ways of interaction with fascinating things in the world that what we do on stage is try to create a moment of theater where you're leaning in around the campfire of this particular conversation, which I didn't most of them at the very beginning. [00:51:44] And I did them exactly like I did my interviews for Esquire. We would just talk. I'd pick up. I remember picking up Daniel Silvo or Lee child from the airport, talking with him from the airport in the car. It's like the whole thing is an attempt just to get allow the person to reveal themselves. Three or four times a magazine story. And also three or four times on this stage in the darkened room where in their own humanity is revealed. And then thereby the lights come up. You say, damn, I've got to find out more. I'm a go by their book. And lo and behold, they're in the lobby. Sign the book for you. [00:52:30][45.9]

(MUSIC POST/FADE)

But Doug and Anne didn’t just want to expose the people of Traverse City to authors from around the world…

They wanted the world to see that Traverse City was the place for the next generation of authors. 

So the couple worked with the local public school districts to design training for young writers…

Training they would get school credit for…

Training cut from the same cloth as the Interlochen Arts Academy or the Iowa Writers Workshop that Doug had attended. 

But it instead of costing tens of thousands of dollars… It would be free. 

[01:07:08] And I said, if we can hire a writer from the greater world to come into Traverse City, form a workshop with a cohort of, say, 10 to 20 students, and then bring our guests writers who are coming in from across the country. And have the come in and do master classes and during the week have the writer and residents we've hired teach writing, then that we can do that. And. We can do that and then we can give it back to the public school system. Because why not? [01:07:45][36.3]

(START MUSIC)

The Stantons called the program for public high school juniors and seniors…

Front Street Writers. 

Here’s how it works.

(([01:08:30] Let's say you're a young person and you wake up in Buckley, Michigan, which is a very small town, and you come in to the front three writers program, run at the ISD, it's a five day week program and you're there for the morning session and you go back to your home school for the afternoon, but you show up one morning on a Tuesday and Lee child is sitting in your writing workshop. And the morning before that, he'd been on the Today Show in New York talking about his new Jack Reacher book. And Lee did come in. He sat down. The writer in residence at the time said, we're talking about revision, Mr. Child. This has been our unit now for about two weeks. Lee looked at him, said revision. I don't believe in it. Who needs it? And it was the perfect teaching moment. It crystallized what teaching is, which is that you have to create. A safe, supportive place where you can pull the rug out from your own preconceived notions and create confusion and then provide the student with tools to find clarity. So childhood just basically blown all their conceptions about the importance of revision. And now the students had to find their way back to what he meant. Was he right? [01:09:48][77.7]))

In addition to the National Writers Series and Front Street Writers, Anne Stanton also helped found a publishing company called Mission Point Press that helps Northern Michigan authors get their work into print. 

Which means Northern Michigan went from a place where 40 years ago a young writer growing up had no idea how to pursue his vocation...

To arguably one of the best place in the country to develop young writing talent. 

(MUSIC POST/FADE)

[01:11:32] So, the writer series has been on for 10 years. Front Street Writers has been going a little bit less than that. Right. So the legacy hasn't yet set in yet. It hasn't yet set in. But there are authors that will come from your efforts. So I'm curious what it will be like to hold a book from an author who came through sort of the Doug and Anne Stanton system and how that will compare to holding your own work. [01:11:57][25.2]

[01:12:02] I think at that point we say scene and drop the curtain [01:12:07][5.4]

(START THEME)

Doug and Anne are proof that no dream is too big for a small town like Traverse City. 

[00:55:07] it is the right size wherein it's all it is a kind of town that says yes to practically any idea. You know, no matter how kooky, expensive there. It's not a community of no. It's a community of yes. And whether or not things will succeed. We can't predict. But it's also the right size in that you can have an impact. [00:55:35][27.9]

(THEME POST/FADE - KEEP UNDER)

To learn more about the National Writers Series, visit national - writers - series.org.

To learn more about Front Street Writers, visit front - street - writers.com.

If you want info about Mission Point Press go to Mission Point Press.com

You can also check out Doug Stanton’s personal website at doug-stanton.com.

Creative Coast is a podcast series brought to you by Traverse Connect…

 

the Grand Traverse Region’s Economic Development Organization…

 

and is produced by me, Tommy Andres and Maria Byrne for our company Airloom Media. 

 

That’s spelled A-I-R.

 

The music is composed by Josh Hoisington. 

 

This podcast series is made possible thanks to generous support and funding from the Michigan Film and Digital Media Office at Michigan’s Economic Development Corporation. 

 

You can visit Traverse Connect’s website at traverseconnect.com. 

 

(THEME POST/FADE/END)











DOUG


[00:28:53] I always tell writers to print it out and make it tactile so that you can see the beginning, middle and end of it hanging on your wall, almost like a trophy like you've got out. Trap this thing in front inside and hung it up. [00:29:12][18.5]



[00:30:24] if I hang around you, I mean, I ask a lot of questions, but I won't really hang around. Like I remember asking Mellencamp for his dream journal where I would ask him what he dreamed the night before and believe he would tell me sometimes, and I had no idea this was going to go on in piece. But I just thought, well, if you're gonna be a reporter, you should really try to observe, absorb everything and be a fly on the wall. And then my questions would come later to him. But. And I have very different approaches, but we try to end up in the same place. [00:30:55][31.0]



[00:44:30] we all came together, all kinds of people to open the state theater was just magical. [00:44:36][6.0]

[00:48:06] we're into our 10th year with like 150 authors so far. [00:48:11][4.6]



[00:53:20] the National Writers series, was a... Is an event really founded by writers, curated by them, really, because we know what we need to be successful on the road. [00:53:34][14.0]


[01:05:01] I was reading these writers from around the country and I was taken seriously as an artist way before I really deserved to be. But that was really a cool thing and it created an identity for me. So this same time also that I'm bumping into Jim Harrison on the street in Traverse City. I never forgot that experience. I was a nerd with no direction. I really loved reading and writing. I had no way to really look forward. But Interlochen gave me that direction to jump ahead or soldiers comes out. It's a success. We have children of our own. And through no fault of its own, I think I learn that Interlochen was like fifty five thousand dollars a year to go there. And when I had gone there was, I think my last year it was like you say, three thousand bucks. And we ran out of money, actually. And my mother and father said, well, you got to earn it. So I got a job frying fish at a local fish shop for a year. I mean, this is what a geek I was. I gave up all friends and everything and saved money to get back there for my senior year. But when I found out that it was that expensive, I just I felt I was angry. Because that's ridiculous. [01:06:23][82.3]// [01:06:27] when it comes to writing, it's really a person sitting across from another with a table and a piece of paper and a pencil and a writing and some kind of document between them. Now, that is a very private, inexpensive experience. So I thought, why can't we provide what I had experienced as a young person to those people who were like me today and why can't we do it cheaply and how can we do it? [01:06:57][30.5]


[01:07:08] And I said, if we can hire a writer from the greater world to come into Traverse City, form a workshop with a cohort of, say, 10 to 20 students, and then bring our guests writers who are coming in from across the country. And have the come in and do master classes and during the week have the writer and residents we've hired teach writing, then that we can do that. And. We can do that and then we can give it back to the public school system. Because why not? [01:07:45][36.3]


[01:08:30] Let's say you're a young person and you wake up in Buckley, Michigan, which is a very small town, and you come in to the front three writers program, run at the ISD, it's a five day week program and you're there for the morning session and you go back to your home school for the afternoon, but you show up one morning on a Tuesday and Lee child is sitting in your writing workshop. And the morning before that, he'd been on the Today Show in New York talking about his new Jack Reacher book. And Lee did come in. He sat down. The writer in residence at the time said, we're talking about revision, Mr. Child. This has been our unit now for about two weeks. Lee looked at him, said revision. I don't believe in it. Who needs it? And it was the perfect teaching moment. It crystallized what teaching is, which is that you have to create. A safe, supportive place where you can pull the rug out from your own preconceived notions and create confusion and then provide the student with tools to find clarity. So childhood just basically blown all their conceptions about the importance of revision. And now the students had to find their way back to what he meant. Was he right? [01:09:48][77.7]



[01:11:32] So, the writer series has been on for 10 years. Front Street Writers has been going a little bit less than that. Right. So the legacy hasn't yet set in yet. It hasn't yet set in. But there are authors that will come from your efforts. So I'm curious what it will be like to hold a book from an author who came through sort of the Doug and Anne Stanton system and how that will compare to holding your own work. [01:11:57][25.2]

[01:12:02] I think at that point we say seen and dropped the curtain [01:12:07][5.4]








ANNE


[00:29:24] So I was working at Northern Express at the time, so I switched from daily reporting to to an express, which is a weekly. And it was a lot more my style because it could work for an entire week on one story instead of having to write one or two stories a day. And they are wonderful. They gave me no identity working on a project. I had to take a couple of weeks off to help them. They said, OK. And I was very grateful. [00:29:51][27.8]