Alyson is an award-winning writer and communications strategist with nearly 30 years experience conceiving clear, targeted and persuasive messaging and materials for government agencies,

non-profit organizations, and businesses. She specializes in reaching diverse internal and external audiences and is adept at translating complex, technical, medical, or industry-insider-speak into cohesive, accessible language.

 

Prior to launching AWC, Alyson served as personal speechwriter to Eunice Kennedy Shriver and as speechwriter and senior communications team member for several international organizations. She is the current speechwriter for energy industry executives.

Alyson has authored or ghosted five non-fiction books—on such varied topics as conservation, executive leadership, and technical debt. Her poetry has appeared in December Magazine, The New Guard Review’s BANG!, WWPH Writes, Coneflower Cafe, Tiny Seed, among others. She was a 2022 finalist for Harbor Review's Jewish American Woman's Poetry Prize; 2021 Jeff Marks Memorial Poetry Prize, judged by Carl Phillips; first prize winner of the 2021 Inner Loop/District Fray poetry contest; and first prize winner of the 2021 the Derick Burleson Poetry Prize.

 

Alyson is a 2022 New Women's Voices Chapbook Competition finalist. Her debut poetry collection, Bellow & Hiss, is available for purchase now from Finishing Line Press. Her play, Object Relations, a two-woman show containing nine original poems, received a live-streamed premiere performance in April, 2021, benefitting mental healthcare in DC. Plans are in the works for a stage production.

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Alyson earned a B.A. in English and creative writing (poetry) from the University of Maryland, College Park, and has completed postgraduate coursework in creative writing at Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, Stanford University, Kenyon Review Writers' Workshop, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. 

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