Alison Lowenstein is a writer and freelance editor. She’s the author the guidebooks City Weekends: The Greatest Escapes and Getaways in and Around NYC, City Kid New York: The Ultimate Guide for NYC Parents ages 4-12, and City Baby Brooklyn. She has written for National Geographic Traveler, Departures, American Way, Arrive, Porthole, NY Daily News, Newsday, Lilith, Wild Blue Yonder, Time Out New York Kids, AOLTravel.com, TravelandLesiure.com, Marieclaire.com, Parenting.com, etc,. In addition, she was a freelance editor at Disney’s Marvel Books, where she also wrote numerous stories in the 5-Minute Marvel Stories and 5-Minute Spider-Man Storybook collections, as well as paperbacks, film novelizations and TV tie-ins. Her short stories appeared in Fiction, The Brooklyn Rail, Portland Review, The Melic Review, Wordsmitten, and other literary journals. This spring her plays will be performed at the Abingdon Theatre’s Benefit Challenge and the Apron Strings Project. She was a semifinalist in the 2014 Indie Boots Theatre Festival in Chicago. A recreational runner, she is training for her first marathon.