Alan Rifkin is a former contributing editor to Details magazine who has also written for LA Weekly, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, Premiere, Buzz, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, and The Quarterly, ed. Gordon Lish. His short-story collection, SIGNAL HILL, was a finalist for the 2004 Southern California Booksellers Award in Fiction, and he was also a finalist for the 2003 PEN Center-USA Award in Journalism. He lives in Los Angeles and has five children.