The National Writers Series Podcast

Erin French joined the National Writers Series at the City Opera House on November 8, 2023 with guest host Cara McDonald.

Erin French is the owner and chef of The Lost Kitchen, a 40-seat restaurant in Freedom, Maine, that was recently named one of TIME Magazine’s World’s Greatest Places and one of “12 Restaurants Worth Traveling Across the World to Experience” by Bloomberg. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, Finding Freedom, and features in Magnolia Network’s The Lost Kitchen, which is now in its third season. A born-and-raised native of Maine, she learned early the simple pleasures of thoughtful food and the importance of gathering for a meal. Her love of sharing Maine and its delicious heritage with curious dinner guests and new friends alike has been lauded by such outlets such as The New York Times, Martha Stewart Living, NPR’s All Things Considered, The Chew, CBS This Morning, The Today Show, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and Food & Wine.

Heather Cox Richardson joined the National Writers Series at Lars Hockstad Auditorium on October 17, 2023 with guest host Neal Rubin.

Heather Cox Richardson is a Professor of History at Boston College. She has written about the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, and the American West in award-winning books whose subjects stretch from the European settlement of the North American continent to the history of the Republican Party through the Trump administration. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and The Guardian, among other outlets. She is the cohost of the Vox podcast, Now & Then. She began writing a daily Facebook essay in the midst of the 2019 impeachment crisis, providing historical context for the daily churn of news. It soon became a chart-topping Substack newsletter, Letters from an American, which now reaches more than 2 million subscribers – passionate, dedicated readers who rely on Richardson’s plainspoken, insightful take on America, past and present, as a much-needed dose of sanity in today’s insane world.

The National Writers Series was pleased to welcome V.E. Schwab to Lars Hockstad Auditorium on October 7, 2023 with guest host Beth Milligan.

VICTORIA “V. E.” SCHWAB is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books, including the acclaimed Shadesuniverse, the Villains series, the City of Ghosts series, Gallant, and the international bestseller The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Her work has received critical acclaim, translated into over two dozen languages, and optioned for television and film. First Kill – a YA vampire series based on Schwab’s short story of the same name – is now a Netflix series. When not haunting Paris streets or trudging up English hillsides, she lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is usually tucked in the corner of a coffee shop, dreaming up monsters.

Ken Follett joined the National Writers Series at the Alluvion on October 1st, 2023 with guest host Pat Livingston.

Ken Follett is one of the world’s best-loved authors, selling more than 188 million copies of his 36 books. Follett’s first bestseller was “Eye of the Needle”, a spy story set in the Second World War. In 1989, “The Pillars of the Earth” was published and has since become Follett’s most popular novel. It reached number one on bestseller lists around the world and was an Oprah’s Book Club pick. Its sequels, “World Without End” and “A Column of Fire”, and prequel “The Evening and the Morning”, proved equally popular, and the Kingsbridge series has sold more than 50 million copies worldwide. Follett lives in Hertfordshire, England, with his wife, Barbara. Between them they have five children, six grandchildren, and three Labradors.

Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson joined the National Writers Series onstage at the City Opera House on September 19, 2023 with guest host Benjamin Busch.

Authors Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson are both journalists at the Wall Street Journal who have covered gun culture and the industry, including mass shootings, for years. McWhirter, who lives in Georgia, is the author of Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America. He has also written for The Atlanta Journal-Constituion, The Detroit News, and the Harvard Review. Elinson, who lives in California, has also written for the Center for Investigative Reporting and The New York Times. The authors received a MacDowell Fellowship to complete this book.