Alissa McGowan (she/her)

Owner + Editrix Extraordinaire

Hi, I’m Alissa! I am a white, cisgendered, pansexual, polyamorous cat person and board game geek who curses like a sailor and smokes like Snoop. Proudly neurodiverse, I was diagnosed as autistic and ADHD last year, both of which are glaringly obvious now that I understand what they actually mean. It’s freeing as hell to realize that I’m not weird or broken or lazy or failing at adulting; I’m a totally normal autistic person who is disabled by an ableist, neurotypical society! 

My current special interests include crochet, autism, mostly-sit-down paddle boarding, hosting murder mystery parties, cats (especially my beloved Toby), and adventures of all kinds. I watch way too much TV and have a weakness for coffee with too much creamer, gummy candies, and potato chips. I’m a spiritual atheist, a Trekkie, and a Rogue (except when I’m a Ranger, or a Wizard).

Originally from Los Angeles, I now live in northern Georgia with my two partners, three cats, and two kids. We live and work on unceded lands of the Tsalaguwetiyi and S’atsoyaha people (per https://native-land.ca).

To make a long story short, my partners, Ryan (he/him) and Lisa (she/her), have been together since they were seventeen and married since they were twenty. The three of us were best friends for five years before we realized, in April 2019, that we could and wanted to be more.

The first year and a half of our relationship was tumultuous and challenging, in no small part because we were all undiagnosed at the time (one partner and one kiddo are autistic, the other set is ADHD). I didn’t have vocabulary for the daily meltdowns I was experiencing, and all three of us were severely dysregulated for months.

I was also adamantly childless by choice, and they came with eight- and ten-year-old kiddos. Neela is twelve and Talia is fourteen now, and we’ve fortunately all settled into a family dynamic and a rhythm that works for us. Understanding our neurodivergence has helped a lot, too! 

The three cats came with me (much to Ryan’s dismay), but Talia has repossessed my youngest, a four-year-old tabby named Huxley who was born with no eyes and has anxiety. They are each other’s emotional support animals. Benny (Miles O’Brien Benjamin Sisko) is twenty-one and has been with me since 2005. And five-year-old Toby (Squishtopher Tobias, Earl Grey), is a foster fail and the feline love of my life.

I’m a child of divorce, with parents who split when I was two and were both remarried before I turned five. My mother’s second husband was and is verbally and psychologically abusive, and I’m just starting to realize the ways that trauma intersected with my (at the time) undiagnosed disabilities, as well as to appreciate the ways that my autism and ADHD helped me navigate that trauma.

My dad was also obviously autistic, which is probably part of why we always clicked so well. He died in November 2015, just six months after being diagnosed with lung cancer. It was at once the most painful and most beautiful period of my life. I miss him more than I could ever put into words, and it breaks my heart that he never got to meet my people, but I came out of the experience a better version of myself, and for that I will be forever grateful. He was a writer, too, and I now manage his intellectual property and his legacy (www.centerforaninformedamerica.com). 

Books were an escape and writing was an outlet for me as a kid, and that is part of what fuels my passion for the work that I do. Red Pen for Rent exists to help people find their voices and express their creativity through the written word. In my fifteen years as an editor, coach, and collaborator, I have supported more writers than I can count at all stages of practicing and playing with their craft, and I hope to continue doing so for many years to come.

Last updated: February 2023