Alan’s first film, the half-hour O Beautiful, won the Future Filmmaker Award at the 2002 Palm Springs International Short Film Festival, and was an official selection of the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. It was singled out by critics as "a rare piece of film making." His feature debut, Book of Love, which stars Simon Baker, Frances O’Connor, and Bryce Dallas Howard, was praised for its "creepy eroticism and sly intelligence" and for being "a movie that feels about as real as it’s possible to be." It was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, and premiered on Showtime. Alan’s second feature, Superheroes, starring Dash Mihok and Spencer Treat Clark, was praised by critics as "brimming with a rare compassion." It won numerous prizes, including the Feature Filmmaker’s Award at the 2007 Avignon/New York Film Festival, the Maverick Spirit Award (top prize) at the 2008 Cinequest Film Festival, Special Jury Mention at both the 2008 Austin Film Festival and the 2008 Ashland Independent Film Festival, and both the Narrative Feature and Best Film awards at the 2008 Brooklyn International Film Festival. Alan's most recent feature, Private Romeo, an all-male contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, will be released in North American and Europe in the winter of 2012. It won a Grand Jury Prize at 2011 Outfest Film Festival in Los Angeles.



Alan is also the author of the acclaimed novel Audrey Hepburn's Neck, which won the Pacific Rim Book Prize and has been translated into eight languages. He is the recipient of many writing and directing awards, including National Endowment for the Arts, Fulbright, and New York State Council for the Arts Fellowships, and numerous residency fellowships, including those to the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Edward Albee and Ucross Foundations. He spent eight years living in Japan, first as a Fulbright Journalist, and then creating radio programs for the BBC, and writing for numerous publiciations. His assignments have taken him from the Antarctic to the Sahara and the Himalayas. He now lives in New York City.