Special NWS Event: Afghanistan Today

Sept. 23 panel featuring Afghanistan-born NMC grad, author, former diplomat, more

By Lynda Wheatley | Sept. 18, 2021

Even though the Afghanistan war took place half a world away, there are many connections to that 20-year conflict right here in Michigan. On Thursday, Sept. 23, The National Writers Series is bringing a few of them to the City Opera House stage to talk about America's Longest War. NWS co-founder and bestselling author of the Afghanistan-based “Horse Soldiers” Doug Stanton will host guests Jack Segal; a former senior U.S. diplomat and frequent contributor to Northern Express; Rahela Sidiqi (joining virtually from the UK), the Founding Director of Rahela Trust for Afghan Women’s Education; Shannon Spann DeBruyn, a lawyer and former intelligence officer with extensive counter-terrorism experience, and Edris Fana (pictured), an NMC graduate who fled Afghanistan as a child in 1994 and has long been working to bring his parents safely to Michigan. “With the fall of Kabul to the Taliban last month, this effort has become very urgent,” NWS co-founder Anne Stanton tells Northern Express. For more information and tickets to this live and virtual event, please visit nationalwritersseries.org.