I've been a writer most of my life. I've written books, magazine articles, TV shows, movies, plays, advertising copy, and brochures for my kids' school. A few years ago, I decided to walk away from a successful television writing and producing career and follow my dream of writing prose for a living.

I've since published seven books, CANCER ON $5 A DAY* *chemo not included written with comedian Robert Schimmel (Da Capo Press 2008), JUST A GUY: Notes from a Blue Collar Life (St. Martin’s 2007), THE KINDERGARTEN WARS: The Battle to Get Into America’s Best Private Schools (Warner Books 2006), THE HOLY THIEF: A Con Man's Journey from Darkness to Light (Morrow 2004), TEN ON SUNDAY: The Secret Life of Men (Atria 2003), SPORTS TALK: A Journey Inside the World of Sports Talk Radio (Pocket 2001), and INSIDE THE MEAT GRINDER (St. Martin's 1999), and a slew of articles in magazines like the Los Angeles Times Magazine, Referee, Smoke, and Runner's World.

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."

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 out to Los Angeles to check out the screenwriting scene. I never left. This was 1973.

Within a year, I began a non-stop, twenty-five year television run, writing and producing "Sanford and Son," "What's Happening," "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 web site, check out the books and the articles, and contact me. I'd love to hear from you.



 
 
© 2003 Alan Eisenstock. All rights reserved.