Rusty studied creative writing at that hallowed literary institution, the University of Virginia, where many popular writers such as David Baldacci and Anne Beattie learned and taught – and where Edgar Allan Poe was a student and William Faulkner (a Rusty hero) served as a professor. Another writing hero is Rusty’s boyhood friend, college roommate, lifelong bud, and writing colleague and muse – Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Suskind.
While honing his fiction craft, Rusty led the Advanced Novel Writing Group at the Writers Room/Writers Corner, a writers co-op in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania; thereafter joining the Rebel Writers, a highly select novelist critique group that was highlighted in Writer’s Digest in the article “Plotting a Novel Group.” Rusty has multiple novel projects in the works, and has published microfiction and works in literary journals, with a chapter excerpt that he is particularly proud of from another novel in progress, in a recent issue of Neshaminy (Order on Amazon)
In the professional world, Russ plies the healthcare field as a marketing and medical writer. He directed medical communications for Jefferson Health, where as an advancement writer his first writing mentor was Don Fey, father of another great UVa writer and friend, Tina Fey.
Russ has a master’s in communications, met his wife at the annual conference of the American Writers Association, and has been a full-time freelance writer since his son and daughter were little. He owns The Writers Studio, a creative-editorial, marketing, and promotional-services practice located just outside of Philadelphia.
“The hardest thing about writing is starting and stopping.”
Rusty Allen