Hello, fellow animals!

I’m Alison Zak- a book coach, author, and conservationist who is always reading and writing about wildlife.

I’ve been reading since I caught my dad trying to skip the pages of my bedtime story decades ago, and I’m still a book nerd today.

For years, I worked as a bookseller and events manager at an independent bookstore where I learned a ton about what books sell and why, how the publishing industry works, and how to collaborate with authors.

And I’m a writer! At first, I worried that I peaked in kindergarten when I was selected to attend a Young Author’s Festival. Then I got back to seriously writing and studying the publishing industry about a decade ago, after finishing graduate school.

My first book, Wild Asana: Animals, Yoga, and Connecting Our Practice to the Natural World was traditionally published in 2023, and I’m hard at work on my second and third books.

I also write a free, weekly Substack called Beyond Human Being- check it out and subscribe!

Fun Facts

  • I offer what I like to call playful tough love with equal parts humor and inspiration, plus a heavy dose of relating to clients no matter what phase of the creative process you are in. I experience the joys and challenges of the writing life right alongside you!

  • I have a BA and an MA in anthropology. Because of this I believe:

    • Social science is critical to wildlife conservation. You can’t protect other animals without humans.

    • Anthropomorphism is, overall, a good thing. It connects us with nature. Trying to avoid it in the name of ‘science’ creates harmful separation.

    • Animals have cultural, religious, and spiritual value to humans in addition to ecological and economic value.

  • Wild Form & Savage Grammar by Andrew Schelling

    Shadow Mountain by Renee Askins

    Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

    Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit by Lyanda Lynn Haupt

    Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

    Other beloved authors include Sy Montgomery, Mirabai Starr, Katherine May, Joanna Macy, and Devdutt Pattanaik. 

  • Beavers, primates, turtles, bears, opossums, coyotes, kingfishers, snow leopards, and more!

    I get nerdy about cryptids too (skunk ape, yeti, mothman, etc.) more for the storytelling potential than a belief in their existence. I love when we can’t explain or know everything…mystery is medicine.

  • In the hot tub on the side of a mountain in Colorado, after having just seen a moose in the beaver pond across the street.

    Or in my parent’s old pop-up camper to the sound of raindrops hitting the vinyl while a cardinal chirps nearby.