About Alex

 You know how — in the latest Barbie movie — Ken’s job is ‘Beach’? For the past two decades, Alex’s job has been ‘Creativity.’ At times, that’s looked like Lonely Planet author, startup director or co-founder, journalist or humorist, stand-up comic or improviser, arts therapy educator in a psychiatric hospital, writing coach, speaker or workshop leader.

Alex doesn’t teach writing as much as she teaches getting rid of the barriers that hold you back from writing. To do that, she writes books about creativity, leads workshops, coaches one-to-one, and consults for nonprofits and startups. 

Background

After getting a master’s in journalism from UC Berkeley in 2002, Alex has contributed to over 30 books for Lonely Planet (including Happy, Calm and Explore Every Day), managed start-ups in Silicon Valley and London, taught writing and creativity workshops around the world, performed stand-up (pretty decently) and Improv (very poorly), and worked as a series editor and career coach for The Guardian US. 

Her methodology borrows from neuroscience (she’s presented twice at the Society for the Neuroscience of Creativity), psychology (social, cognitive and positive); both humor and trauma studies; mathematics and Quantified Self; and now thousands of previous students and clients. She’s currently creating a board game based on — you guessed it — creativity.