About Alan |
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I started writing in the second grade. After school the neighborhood kids would gather on the back stoop outside my house in Western Massachusetts and I would tell them stories I made up on the spot -- westerns, mysteries, crazy comedies, you name it. The kids must've liked the stories because they kept coming back, day after day, to hear more.
In the fifth grade, I wrote a novel, a Hardy Boys-type detective story set in outer space. I read it aloud to my mother over several afternoons while she baked pies. Being my mother, she loved every word and encouraged me to "write something more real." |
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In the seventh grade I wrote my first magazine article, a detailed account of my one and only, failed and humiliating ski lesson. Full of high hope, I submitted the story to Reader's Digest. Two weeks later the article was returned with a note from an editor urging me to "keep trying." That personal rejection slip fueled me through the writing of dozens of personal essays and short stories. By the time I finished college, I had accumulated enough rejection slips to wallpaper a house.
Finally, when I was in graduate school at the University of Michigan, I made my first sale, to Detroit Magazine. It was a spoof of an American Express ad touting "Detroit's Finest Restaurants." I had sent the piece off to Detroit along with a self-addressed stamped envelope but had never heard from them. One Sunday morning, while sipping coffee and leafing through the newspaper, I came upon my article, printed in the magazine, peppered with half-a-dozen hilarious drawings! What a rush! I instantly felt as if a warm electrical current was shooting through me. I read the article over and over. Everything I wrote was there, all of it, unedited and illustrated, and open to the public. |
The feeling was magical; I didn't want it to end. My wife and I were about to begin studying for our doctorates at the University of Minnesota. We were supposed to go to Minneapolis over spring break to find an apartment. Instead, I came to Los Angeles to check out the screenwriting scene. I never left.
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Within a year, I began a non-stop, twenty-five year television run, writing sitcoms such as "Mork and Mindy," "Angie," "Family Matters," "Step by Step, "The Nanny," and "Married With Children." I wrote TV movies, several you may have seen, and feature films, which no one will ever see.
It was great, it was lucrative, but somewhere along the line I lost that rush. I desperately wanted it back. I had continued to write an occasional magazine article but it wasn't enough. I longed to return to my first love, writing prose, seeing my words in print, fulltime. In 1999, I took the plunge and I began writing books. I've never looked back. In fact, I savor every moment and every writing day is a new adventure. So click around my website, check out the books, read an excerpt, and contact me. I'd love to hear from you. |
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