Alice Hurwitz retired as Coordinator of Academic Support Services at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Kanbar Institute of Film and Television in 2006. Educated at the University of Florida, the University of North Carolina at Asheville, the University of Southern Mississippi and NYU, she pursued a career teaching art at public schools in North Carolina, Mississippi and Alaska.  While studying for her Ph.D. at NYU, she directed an art gallery in the East Village in the mid 80’s, then spent several years in Burbank, California. Influenced by film students on her return to NYC, Alice recognized that documentary film was an appealing story-telling medium and began researching an old family story that became the basis of Lillie & Leander. For the last ten years, she has lived in upstate New York, writing, painting and gardening in the extreme.