Knowledgeable in the craft as well as the business of writing, Alexis provides guidance that is both supportive and realistic.
After teaching creative nonfiction for many years, Alexis Rizzuto started in the publishing business at the Kneerim & Williams literary agency, then moved to the editorial side at Da Capo Press before becoming the environmental editor at Beacon Press, where she acquired books on topics such as energy, climate, food, nature, animals, and conservation, as well as literary nature writing, memoir and education.
Alexis has 13 years of experience (and counting) in the publishing industry, with an expertise in manuscript editing and book proposal development. A writing teacher for 10 years (at Syracuse University, Cazenovia College, and Boston’s Grub Street), she concentrated on memoir as a way to help students find their voices and tell their story, and as an editor, she helps authors hone their voices and find an audience.
Alexis has guest lectured at Harvard and Emerson College, and has spoken at such conferences as the Society for Environmental Journalists, Grub Street’s Muse and the Marketplace, Kachemak Bay Writers Conference, Solstice at Pine Manor, and Associated Writing Programs (AWP). She has also given back to the community by participating in Bookbuilders of Boston panels, as well as speaking at the Boston College Career Night for the Arts and Emerson’s Graduate Students for Publishing events. She is a member of the nature writing committee of PEN New England, and the Editorial Freelancers Association.
My story
My career as a teacher and editor has been centered on helping people express themselves. I have worked with all kinds of writers, from college students to the elderly, from first-time to established authors.
The motto of Emerson College where I did my MFA is “expression necessary to evolution.” As an editor, I was proud to work for seven years at a publisher whose mission it is to contribute, through publishing progressive ideas, to the evolution of society. My biggest contribution was curating Beacon’s environmental list, working with authors whose mission it was to celebrate and advocate, by educating and inspiring readers on topics that ranged from orcas, tigers, chimpanzees, and a formerly extinct species of seabird, to renewable energy, national parks, a healthier food system, and climate justice. I also edited books on progressive education, reproductive rights, and solutions to gang violence (see books page for a complete list).
While essay collections and memoirs are not outright works of advocacy, the meaning people make of their lives can speak powerfully to issues of race, class, gender, our relationship to nature and each other, and most of all what it means to be human. I was glad to be able to edit some splendid literary works, including a memoir by my former thesis advisor.
As a teacher, I have taught the building blocks of expression to provisional college students whose education had completely failed them in reading and writing. I considered my class to be their last chance to learn how to express their ideas clearly and effectively. I’m proud that the students and I created a culture of success in which positive peer pressure helped all of those students pass the class, each one of them improving their score on standardized tests.
With more advanced students, I enjoyed teaching the art of expressing oneself persuasively, using advanced techniques of logic and rhetoric to argue forcefully and fairly, preparing them to participate in civic life. I also taught classes with a service learning component, which through ethnography and advocacy used expression on behalf of others.
In teaching creative nonfiction, essays, and memoir to adult professionals, the most rewarding experience I had was working with a core group of writers in a master memoir class at Grub Street that continued over the course of several years. We formed a community of writers familiar with each other’s work which was critiqued with equally high levels of trust and rigor. Many essays and even a couple of books workshopped in that class were published.
Sometimes people need a little push to express themselves. One project I’m proud to have had a hand in is the Memoir Project, a collaboration of Grub Street and the Boston Elderly Commission, which provides classes and coaching in memoir to elders, and collects their stories into published volumes. For several years I was the Head Coach and Project Manager, as well as editor of the first three volumes (there are now five). I encouraged a “do ask, do tell” policy, convincing elders that their lives were interesting to younger generations, and their knowledge important to preserve.
About my Work with the Memoir Project Read Some of the Stories