Traverse City Events: The finale to the Traverse City National Writers Series 2011 season, including laugh-out-loud funny man David Sedaris, will mark a total of 40 writers hosted in Traverse City throughout the book festival that began in 2009. “We end the summer/fall season with three humorous takes on the human condition,” says series co-founder Doug Stanton. At the newly renovated Lars Hockstad Auditorium, American Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist and short story writer Jeffrey Eugenides (The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex) will talk about his third novel The Marriage Plot (Oct. 20). “It’s an incredibly literate, very funny and very snappy read,” Stanton says. Sedaris brings his sardonic and incisive social critiques to the intimate City Opera House (Oct. 24), where he’ll read from several yet-to-be-published stories. Best-selling humorist and pop culture writer Chuck Klosterman, author of Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, takes to the Opera House stage (Nov. 10). For tickets: nationalwritersseries.org.
In its mission to support regional high school students interested in writing, National Writers Series’ net proceeds from events go toward a scholarship fund with the Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation; more than $10,000 in scholarships have been awarded so far.