Alan K. Lipton's Bio
I read voraciously as a child -- fiction when I could, biography and history when I had to. I also watched many old, dialogue-rich movies on TV and was fascinated by theater. Whether it was the heavy-handed pacing of musicals or the carefully wrought subtleties of Shakespeare, the bon mots of Wilde or the fraught realism of Miller, the stage captivated me as a storytelling venue. Not content with simply experiencing stories via the pages of books and lines recited by actors, I began writing stories as soon as I learned how the alphabet worked. Regardless of their quality, my tales always employed dialogue to advance the plot. I'm still fascinated by how people use spoken language.
It was clear that my educational path would take me through the liberal arts, and after earning my B.A. in English Literature from the University of California at Berkeley, the publishing industry seemed like a natural choice. I spent 11+ years as managing editor and business manager at EKS Publishing, a tiny press that created and sold foreign language educational materials.
The next phase of my career would have been writing for digital games, but it was that remarkable moment when the gaming industry was crashing and the dotcom boom was taking off. What began as a search for full-time employment turned into a rhythm of seeking and accepting freelance writing assignments. Notable projects from this period included a digital reference title about the Titanic for CircumStance Design and an interactive marketing game for Phoenix Pop Productions. I also thrived as a longtime contractor for Kelli and David Fox's astrology enterprises and for On the Path Productions' health literacy radio shows and podcasts.
In 2010, I started advertising my services as an editor as well as a writer. Although I was willing to edit in any medium, my standout projects were printed books: Val Gunn's fantasy thriller In the Shadow of Swords, Abe Feinberg's memoir/case study Every Child Left Behind, and Mae Silver's feminist history Too Hot to Hide. Editing became my central function during five years with the George Lucas Educational Foundation. I spent the first half of that period as an independent contractor editing blogs for the Edutopia website, and the second half as a full-time employee at GLEF. Greatly enriched by the experience, I returned to my current state of self-employment in 2017.