Paul Alexander is the author of Salinger: A Biography, the basis of Shane Salerno’s much anticipated feature documentary Salinger to be released in theatres by the Weinstein Company in September before appearing on American Masters on PBS in the spring.
Alexander is the editor of the essay collection Ariel Ascending: Writings About Sylvia Plath and the author of Rough Magic, a biography of Plath; Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean, a bestseller that has been published in ten countries; Death and Disaster: The Rise of the Warhol Empire and the Race For Andy’s Millions; Man of the People: The Life of John McCain; The Candidate, a chronicle of John Kerry’s presidential campaign; and Machiavelli’s Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove. He is the author of the bestselling Kindle Singles Murdered, Accused, and Homicidal. His latest e-book, Mistried, was published by Rosetta Books.
A former reporter for Time, Alexander has published nonfiction in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Boston Globe, New York, The Nation, The Village Voice, Salon, Worth, The New York Observer, George, Cosmopolitan, More, Interview, ARTnews, Mirabella, Premiere, Out, The Advocate, Travel & Leisure, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, Biography, Men’s Journal, Best Life, The New York Review of Books, The Huffington Post, and Rolling Stone. In Europe, his journalism has appeared in Paris Match, Gente, and The Guardian. He contributes to The Daily Beast.
Alexander wrote Good Night, Dorothy Kilgallen, an original screenplay about Kilgallen’s investigation of the Kennedy assassination, for Twentieth Century Fox. He is the author of the plays Strangers in the Land of Canaan and Edge, which he directed. Developed at The Actors Studio, Edge, the one-woman play about Sylvia Plath, ran in New York, where Angelica Page received an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination; London; and venues in other cities, among them Miami, where New Times named Page Best Actress. Edge toured Australia and New Zealand and enjoyed a second run in New York. In all, Page performed Edge 400 times. Alexander is the director of a British revival of Ariel Dorfman’s play Death and the Maiden; New York Stories, an evening of one-act plays by Paul Manuel Kane that ran in New York; and Brothers in Arms, a documentary feature film about John Kerry and Vietnam (First Run Features).
Alexander holds a BA in English and Creative Writing from The University of Alabama and an MFA from The Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He has taught at the University of Houston, Long Island University, The City University of New York, and Hofstra University. Memberships include PEN American Center, the Authors Guild, and the Playwrights and Directors Unit of The Actors Studio. In the fall of 2002, he was a Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. In January 2013, he appeared at the Key West Literary Seminar as part of the Writers on Writers series.
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