Alan P. Woodruff brings a wealth of personal experience to his role as a writing instructor and tutor. Most relevant is the fact that he has spent a decade teaching creative novel writing. However, unlike most people who promote themselves as writing gurus, Alan does not have a educational background in the disciplines — such as English, literature, or journalism — generally associated with writing coaches. Instead, he comes to writing from a background in which he has been required to learn how to communicate ideas in a wide range of topics and has applied what he has learned to a disciplined way of thinking about stories and storytelling.
Alan has degrees in chemical engineering [BS/MS: Virginia Tech], administration [PhD: Harvard], and law [JD: Florida State / LLM: U. of Washington]. While her has also studied creative writing at Yale University and the University of Tennessee,
Alan’s approach to story development and coaching comes from bringing an analytical approach to evaluating stories and story ideas and to the presentation of a story.
Alan has been a management consultant and policy analyst for dozens of state and federal agencies (including the Atomic Energy Commission, Department of Justice, Department of Education, and the National Institutes of Health) and international organizations (including the World Bank). He has also served as a contractor to the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency where he has held the highest security clearances.
As a lawyer, Alan has twenty years of experience as a trial attorney representing clients in employment, tax and constitutional matters. He is also a Criminal Justice Act certified federal criminal defense attorney. Alan has more than fifty published articles, is a contributing author to books of education and economics and is the author of one legal reference book. Alan lives on the Atlantic coast in South Carolina.