Doug Stanton lives in his hometown of Traverse City, Michigan, and has worked as a creative writing and English teacher at the undergraduate and graduate college level, and at Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan as writer-in-residence. He has also worked as a commercial fisherman, and caretaker of Robert Frost's house in Vermont. He has traveled extensively as a contributing editor (under yearly contract) for Esquire, Men's Journal and Outside magazines, writing travel, adventure, and political pieces, as well as cover stories about Hollywood figures like Harrison Ford, George Clooney, and Clint Eastwood. He is a founder of the high-profile Traverse City Film Festival, an annual celebration of cinema. With his contacts in the Department of Defense, Pentagon, and various branches of the U.S. military, Stanton is a subject matter expert in the areas of insurgency, counter-insurgency, and unconventional and civil wars.
Stanton graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy as a creative writing and theater student, and from Hampshire College in Massachusetts with a B.A.; and he received an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.