Author of YA, middle grade, and children’s fiction.
Part-time writer for Disney Publishing.
Full-time Disney fan, animal lover, and fairy tale aficionado.

Author. Reader. Disney fan. Fairy tale aficionado. Animal lover. Those terms, in no particular order, sum me up. My name is Alexandra Z. Lazar, but my friends call me Allie. (You can too, if you’d like!) I live in Vermont with my parents, my sister, my grandma, and our MANY pets. I’m a writer-for-hire for Disney Publishing, which is a dream come true because it combines two of my favorite subjects—Disney and writing! So far, I’ve written the Big Hero 6 Read-Along Storybook and CD and Aladdin: Beyond the Palace Walls. I’m also working on original fiction, which I hope to publish someday.

Want to hear more about me? Excellent: as anyone who’s met me knows, I love to talk almost as much as I love to write!

I write fiction for kids, middle-schoolers, and young adults. My favorite type of story? Imaginative and witty fairytale-inspired fantasy, full of magic and adventure, in which my characters find the courage to speak up, be true to themselves, and even change the world. I believe in magic, wishes, happy endings, and making dreams come true, so everything I write is sprinkled with a healthy dose of pixie dust. But one of my favorite things about fantasy is that relatable messages are hidden beneath all of that sparkle. (Although I do love the pixie dust itself, of course! Shout-out to Tinkerbell!) That’s why I love writing about characters who feel different from the people around them. In real life, I’m known for having a big smile, wearing bright colors and patterns, and getting very excited about the things that matter most to me. My characters stand out from the crowd just as much as I do, so I always enjoy watching them learn to value their individuality, quirks and all.

In my house, I have my own personal library, and no matter how much I organize the shelves, they are constantly overflowing. I’ve adored books since birth: first, when my parents read to me, and then when two-year-old me taught myself how to read. It’s this life-long love of reading that inspired me to become an author—that, and lots of ideas, a fascination with fantasy, and an active imagination that just begs to be put to good use. Combine that with my love for Disney, fairy tales, family, and animals (my cat Zooey makes cameos in my work… and on my site, as you’ve surely noticed!) and you have a pretty good idea of what inspires me. When I’m not reading or writing, I enjoy drawing, playing the piano, doing arts-and-crafts, taking photos, and re-watching my favorite TV show, Once Upon a Time.

I earned my MFA in Creative Writing, with a focus on Young Adult fiction, from Southern New Hampshire University online in 2020. As my thesis, I wrote my first full-length novel: a fairytale reimagining/mash-up that I hope to share with the world someday! In 2016, I graduated Summa Cum Laude when I earned my BA in Creative Writing, with a concentration in Fiction, from the same college. (See? It’s cool to be smart.) During my time at SNHU, two of my stories were published in the college’s literary journal, The Manatee. Speaking of being published: I also co-wrote Unforeseen, an eBook novella in the Kingdom Keepers series, with award-winning author Ridley Pearson. That was another dream come true, because Kingdom Keepers is my favorite book series! Mr. Pearson offered me the job after I won several writing contests, which resulted in several paragraphs of my writing being included in Kingdom Keepers VII: The Insider, a New York Times best-seller.

I’ve had a lifelong dream of walking into Barnes and Noble and seeing my book – with my name on the cover – on a shelf, where people like you can enjoy it. That dream has come true because of my writer-for-hire work (well, almost… but having my name on the inside cover still counts!) and I can’t wait until the day when it happens with one of my own books. I want my stories to inspire, entertain, and comfort my readers, to arouse their imaginations, and to remind them that they’re not alone—just like so many books have done for me. In the meantime, I’ll keep creating stories, stringing words together, and turning the things that I’ve imagined into tangible sentences on the page/computer screen. After all, in the words of Cinderella: “If you keep on believing, the dream that you wish will come true!”