If you’re here looking for a summary of my career and experience, check out my LinkedIn.

If you’re here because you’re curious about Who I Am, stick around!

How do these things usually start? Well, I guess I grew up in Maine. I spent my summers sitting on a rock by the river. A lot of times, there was a book on my lap. Sometimes there was a dog. My life peaked when I had both. Winters were dominated by the beautiful yet slightly masochistic sport that is Nordic skiing. If you like being cold and in pain for extended periods of time, I would highly recommend it. 

Once I got old enough, it was suggested to me that I might go to college and do something Practical and Realistic with my life. Following this astute advice to the letter, I decided to major in creative writing. 

I spent the first two weeks of college in a sleep-deprived delirium, adjusting from the total nighttime silence of rural Maine to the calming city-life lullaby that is the screeching of Boston’s green line. To cure my insomnia, I tried everything. I wore earplugs. I played those stupid whale noises in my headphones. I ran ten miles before bed. I contemplated starting a fight club. Then, one day, I simply passed out. Insomnia wasn’t a problem anymore. I’d Adapted. The fight club idea was tabled, but I kept the red leather jacket.

A good microcosm of my college experience thus far is the random Tuesday in which I ran seven miles, wrote ten pages, went to two classes, changed my major, worked for six hours, crowd surfed at a metal show, was adopted by a twelve year old girl, and saved from a creep who was following me home by four badass drag queens from Montréal. 

I love to make cool stuff. Books, magazines, muffins. Audio is great because you can listen to it while you do the dishes. I hate Skittles because in third grade I ate three hundred of them in under twenty minutes. I can’t snap my fingers. I can wiggle my nose. 

If any of this interests you, please drop me a note. I’d love to chat.

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Ali Dening is a writer from Maine. She is currently pursuing a Master’s in Writing and Publishing from Emerson College. Her work has been published by The Berkeley Beacon, Page Turner Magazine, and in the anthology From the Edge of the World — recognized by the Maine Literary Awards and The Boston Globe. A regular contributor to the Magazeum, she helps run two podcasts about the legacy and future of magazines: Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) and The Full Bleed. Awarded the Gish Jen Fiction Fellowship by the Writer’s Room of Boston in 2024, today Dening serves on the board of the Room, interviewing bestselling authors and running literary events. Currently, she is co-writing the second edition of a memoir by John Carter.