Stories Begin With a Conversation

Douglas Childs LaNier is a novelist and short-story writer with a career spanning journalism, advertising, public relations, and destination marketing. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he later pursued graduate creative writing studies at the University of Tampa and studied fiction with novelist Tom Drury at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop Summer Program. Before devoting himself more fully to fiction, LaNier led tourism organizations in five states and served as marketing director for Zoo Atlanta. He lives on Florida’s Gulf Coast, where he writes fiction shaped by a lifetime of travel, observation, and storytelling.

Douglas Childs LaNier is a novelist and short-story writer whose career has spanned journalism, advertising, public relations, corporate communications, and destination marketing.

LaNier’s interest in writing began early. At eleven, he had his first piece published—a letter to his hometown newspaper arguing that flying saucers were real. He later studied English and journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, earning a B.A. in Journalism before beginning his career with a major public relations agency in Manhattan. Early assignments took him across America interviewing farmers and writing for agricultural publications, eventually carrying him through 37 states and three Canadian provinces.

After moving to Atlanta, LaNier spent two decades in advertising, public relations, and corporate communications, including serving as marketing director for Zoo Atlanta. He later found his professional calling in destination marketing, leading tourism organizations in Georgia, North Carolina, California, Arizona, and Florida. His years in Huntington Beach and the civic and political drama surrounding its Surf City USA® identity ultimately inspired his novel The Quest for Surf City.

Throughout his professional career, LaNier continued writing fiction. He later pursued graduate creative writing studies at the University of Tampa and studied fiction with novelist Tom Drury at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop Summer Program.

An Eagle Scout and lifelong traveler and outdoorsman, LaNier has visited 38 countries, led ten backpacking trips into the Grand Canyon, climbed Half Dome three times, and hiked the John Muir Trail.

He lives on Florida’s Gulf Coast, where he writes fiction shaped by a lifetime of travel, observation, and storytelling.

For more than two decades, I worked in destination marketing, helping communities decide how they wanted to present themselves to the world. Yet despite novels taking readers inside almost every imaginable profession, I had never encountered one set inside a destination marketing organization. I wanted to bring readers into that largely invisible world.

My years in Huntington Beach provided the story. I witnessed firsthand the transformation of its tourism organization and the events surrounding the trademark battle with Santa Cruz over Surf City USA. The dispute brought together place branding, politics, community identity, ambition, and the question of who can lay claim to an identity already embedded in popular culture.

The Quest for Surf City transforms a version of that experience into fiction, compressing years of events and personalities into a story about ambition, loyalty, reinvention, and what happens when people devote themselves to building something larger than themselves.

For interviews, appearances, review copies, or other media inquiries:
douglas@douglaschildslanier.com