A dual Canadian / US citizen, Alex Epstein grew up in New York City. He graduated Yale in 1985 in Computer Science and English, magna cum laude. He went to UCLA for his MFA in filmmaking. After a decade in LA working as a development executive for independent production companies, he moved to Montreal to become a professional film and television writer. His first book, Crafty Screenwriting: Writing Movies That Get Made (Henry Holt: New York 2002), came out of his experiences in development. His second book, Crafty TV Writing: Thinking Inside the Box (Henry Holt: New York), came out in 2006, and his first novel, The Circle Cast: The Lost Years of Morgan le Fay (Tradewind: Vancouver), came out in 2010. Epstein co-created a comic drama series, Naked Josh (2004-2006), for Showcase and Oxygen, and was one of the writers on the hit Canadian film Bon Cop / Bad Cop (2006). Moving to video games in 2011, he is the Narrative Director at Compulsion Games, where he shipped Contrast (2013) and We Happy Few (2018-2019). Epstein lives in Montreal with his wife Lisa Hunter, a video game writer and screenwriter, and his daughter.