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Allison Burnett
I was born in Ithaca, New York, while my father, also named Allison, was earning his doctorate in biology at Cornell. For the next ten years, my family traveled quite a bit as he moved up the profe...view moreI was born in Ithaca, New York, while my father, also named Allison, was earning his doctorate in biology at Cornell. For the next ten years, my family traveled quite a bit as he moved up the professorial ranks. Aside from domestic travels, we also traveled abroad, for sabbatical leaves in Brussels and in Naples. When I was ten, my father was offered a job at Northwestern University. We moved to Evanston, Illinois, where I attended the local public high school and college at Northwestern.At Northwestern, I acted in plays, while majoring in the Oral Interpretation of Literature. Soon, my writing was far more important to me than my acting. I graduated early and, at twenty years old, moved to New York City. The following year, I attended the Juilliard School as a fellow of the Lila Acheson Wallace Playwriting Program.For the next decade, I worked as a legal proofreader and a high school tutor, while writing fiction full-time. As I was without an agent, my work went largely unread. In 1990, weary of struggle, I moved to Los Angeles to write screenplays.Within a year of arriving here, I was making a living as a screenwriter, but, as I soon discovered, a living is not a life. I decided to return to my roots and write fiction, as well.view less