These are the people in your neighborhood! Have you ever wondered who else is joining AvantGuild besides, hopefully, you? Each week now on MBToolBox we'll highlight one of our valued members and their newest projects. If you're interested in being featured as a profile, drop a line to the folks at AG membership.

Name: Peter Alson

Age: 50

Location: Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.

What is your specialty or focus?
Biography and memoir with a particular affection for anything having to do with the worlds of gambling, poker and boxing.

What's the latest thing you've worked on?
I've got two books coming out in the next year. The first is a biography of Stuey "The Kid" Ungar, the world's greatest poker player, called "One of a Kind." Atria is publishing it this June. The other is a collaboration with Teddy Atlas, a boxing trainer and commentator. Ecco will be publishing it sometime next year, and it is still in search of a title.

What has been your most difficult assignment and how did you deal with its challenges?
Every book and article presents its own unique challenges, and you deal with them in whatever way you can, understanding that there is probably some better way that you either don't have the time for or the ingenuity to have come up with. The Teddy Atlas book I just finished was a rollercoaster because life with Teddy was--how shall I put it--unpredictable. But at the end I could say both that I had survived it and I was glad I'd taken the ride.

What's the best or most helpful thing that an editor has told you?
"Write about the thing you're most ashamed of." (Also, "You can come in and pick up your check now.")

What's the worst writing or freelancing advice you've ever gotten?
"Think about your audience."

What was the most difficult part of getting your books written and published?
Surviving with no money.

If you'd like to drop Peter a line, you can reach him here.