A New Yorker by birth, educated in California, and living an adventurous and freewheeling lifestyle in the Rocky Mountains, Allison has traveled from coast to coast, leaving a carbon footprint of red corrections on Word documents along the way.
For over 15 years, Allison has worked as an editor, writer, copyeditor, and acquisitions editor for a variety of publishing companies (Boutique of Quality Books Publishing, WriteLife Publishing, Barking Rain Press, China Books, Virtual Tales, among others), as well as an editorial assistant for established literary journals (Fiction International; Pacific Review). Allison’s keen eye has edited and/or acquired manuscripts of every genre, many of which have won awards (Literary Classic Book Awards, Somerset Awards, IPPY eBook Awards, Benjamin Franklin Awards, Generation Indie Book Awards, Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards, etc.). The long list of self-published books Allison has edited have four- to five-star ratings on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Goodreads. With years of experience in the publishing industry, Allison is always aware of literary and marketing trends in the ever-fickle world of publishing.
Allison has taught creative writing—fiction and poetry—at San Diego State University, and writing composition and rhetoric at ITT Technical Institute, where she earned the Teaching Performance Award. As an educator, Allison acknowledges that not all writers are on the same page (pun intended!), and she adjusts her editing style and process to fit the needs of the author and the project. Thousands of voices and writing styles have graced Allison’s desk, and she approaches each project with confidence and clarity, all with the help of her furry coworker, Kitten, and her barking workshopping partners, Hercules and Ginger, though the latter are only available via Skype.
Allison earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from San Diego State University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English with a minor in creative writing from the University at Albany. Her master’s thesis was a collection of short stories, and her work, including “From the Atlantic to the Pacific, “The Way She Rolls,” “100 Reason Why I Had to Hightail It out of Nowhere,” has appeared in literary journals. Allison will never forget the day when she found a glaring tense-shift error in her first published short story, and since then she has been on a mission to correctly shift every tense.
Even though Allison sometimes misses the ocean, she loves the mountains and the stars, but she will never be an astronaut because of her fear of heights and claustrophobia. She likes to keep her feet planted firmly on the earth, thank you very much.
