Alex Colston

With Respect to Journalism, Editing, and Psychoanalysis

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CV

Editor, journalist, and clinician. I have spent about ten years across books, magazines, digital news, and investigative journalism: first editor of Drop Site News’s daily newsletter, co-founder and deputy editor of Parapraxis, assistant editor at Basic Books, and fact-checker for The Baffler, GQ, and Pitchfork TV. As an independent journalist covering the Palestine solidarity movement, I sailed with both Global Sumud Flotilla missions to Gaza and was detained by Israel both times. I hold an MA in Clinical Psychology from Duquesne University and an MA with Distinction from Birkbeck, University of London.

Brooklyn, NY · colstonalex3@gmail.com · @re_colston · Newsletter: The Common Disorder · See also Writing and Media Work and Freelance Editing Services

Editorial Experience

Story Editor, Drop Site News

New York (remote) · March 2025 – February 2026

  • First editor of the daily newsletter, Drop Site Daily, and of much of the outlet’s international reporting.
  • Commissioned and edited investigations on social movements, geopolitics, and corruption from national and international staff and freelancers.
  • Edited dispatches from Palestinian journalists in Gaza and Jeremy Scahill’s reporting on Palestinian politics, the ceasefire negotiations, and political prisoners.
  • Fact-checked, reframed, and resourced reports; managed reporters and a daily publishing schedule.
  • Built the outlet’s multimedia digital infrastructure with the social media team; audience work with Google Analytics and Chartbeat.

Deputy Editor and Co-Founder, Parapraxis

December 2021 – March 2025

  • Co-founded the print and web magazine of psychoanalysis and politics; profiled in New York magazine, “Club Freud” (2023).
  • Top-edited every piece online and across six print issues, including a standalone issue on Palestinian resistance.
  • Designed and started the magazine’s sections with fellow editors.
  • Commissioned, developed, and edited essays, criticism, and reviews; co-wrote editorials; managed the editorial calendar.

Freelance Book Editor and Fact-Checker

January 2020 – present

  • Developmental, structural, and line editing and fact-checking of academic and trade nonfiction for authors at Duke, MIT, Fordham, and UNC university presses, Routledge, Teachers College Press, and Haymarket Books.
  • Subjects: politics, sociology, critical theory, history, literary criticism, psychoanalysis, philosophy, and journalism.

Assistant Editor, Basic Books and Seal Press (Hachette Book Group)

New York · August 2017 – August 2020

  • Supported acquisitions in history, politics, science, philosophy, and the social sciences for up to four editors, including the publisher and associate publisher.
  • Wrote editorial letters; line-edited and structurally edited manuscripts, including Christopher Capozzola’s Bound by War, Anne Fausto-Sterling’s new material for Sexing the Body, and Jamie McCallum’s Worked Over.
  • Managed production schedules, rights and permissions, and title databases; wrote flap and marketing copy.

Researcher, Fact-Checker, and Copy Editor, The Baffler

New York · November 2017 – August 2020

  • Fact-checked and copyedited long-form essays and reporting, print and web; proofread more than twenty print issues.

Researcher and Fact-Checker, Condé Nast (GQ and Pitchfork TV)

New York · May 2017 – 2019

  • Fact-checked reporting for GQ; researched and fact-checked scripts for some forty Pitchfork TV music documentaries.

Editorial Intern, Lapham’s Quarterly

New York · February – May 2017

  • Interned under the late Lewis Lapham; researched historical texts for the “Fear” issue and copyedited and proofread the issue.

Editorial Intern and Temporary Editorial and Development Assistant, The New Press

New York · September 2016 – July 2017

  • Copyedited a manuscript through transmittal; co-edited the anthology Wolf Whistle Politics; wrote catalog and jacket copy; migrated the donor database.

Editorial Intern, In These Times

Chicago · October 2015 – February 2016

  • Fact-checked, copyedited, and proofread four print issues; researched investigative pieces; filed FOIA requests.

Reporting Experience

Independent Journalist, Progressive International

Italy · October – November 2026

  • Reported a port-by-port series on Italian dockworkers ahead of the October 30, 2026 European port strike, from Livorno, Gioia Tauro, and Genoa, each dispatch with a self-produced video report.

Contributor, Zeteo

April – June 2026

  • Sailed with the Global Sumud Flotilla’s spring 2026 mission; filed written and video reports from five ships. Detained by Israel and reported on the conditions of detention.

Field and Investigative Reporter, Drop Site News

2025

  • Reported from aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla, August – October 2025; detained by Israel with some twenty other members of the press.
  • Co-reported an investigation into a Jersey City warehouse shipping military cargo to Israel; field and video reporting on weapons shipments and Israeli prison conditions.

Communications Team, U.S. Delegation, Global Sumud Flotilla

2026

  • Organized press engagement for the spring 2026 mission and handled relationships with participating journalists.

Video and Audio

  • Field video journalist since 2025: shoot, edit, sequence, and mix documentary dispatches (Drop Site News, Zeteo, BreakThrough News, Progressive International), including these two from the 2025 flotilla.
  • Premiere Pro, Audition, Lumetri color; DJI, DSLR, and phone shooting; mixing to broadcast loudness; captions and vertical social cuts.
  • Audio engineer and musician (2010–2017): four bands across eight records; production engineer for Version Fest 14, a benefit for Chicago’s Lumpen Radio.

Clinical, Social Work, and Community Experience

Graduate Clinician, Duquesne University Community Clinic

Pittsburgh · January 2022 – December 2024

  • Individual, couples, family, and group psychotherapy under licensed supervision, including crisis intervention, intakes, and treatment planning.
  • Collaborative psychological assessment (WAIS, MMPI-2, Rorschach) with integrated reports; coordinated care with psychiatrists and medical providers.

Co-Founder and Co-Director, The Psychosocial Foundation

December 2021 – March 2025

  • Co-founded the nonprofit that publishes Parapraxis and runs a remote clinic, seminars, workshops, and political education; its programming raised over $100,000 a year and drew hundreds of participants to events, on a sliding scale.

Settlement Worker and Resident, Benton House

Chicago · January 2011 – March 2015

  • Lived and worked at a century-old South Side settlement house as organizer, teacher, financial officer, administrator, board member, and facilities manager.
  • Ran the food pantry, after-school and literacy programs, and a lending library; connected residents with services; led an institutional overhaul in 2013; restored and maintained its two buildings, doing carpentry, construction, and electrical work.

Education

MA, Clinical Psychology, Duquesne University

Pittsburgh · December 2024

  • Completed the master’s portion of the PhD program in Clinical Psychology. Advisor: Derek Hook.

MA, Psychoanalytic Studies, with Distinction, Birkbeck, University of London

December 2021

  • Thesis: “God Plans, We Laugh: Desire, Responsibility, and Freedom in Lacanian and Sartrean Psychoanalysis.” Advisor: Stephen Frosh.

BA, Liberal Arts, with Distinction, Shimer College (Great Books)

Chicago · May 2013

Awards

  • Winner, 5th Annual Deanna Holtzman Interdisciplinary Essay Contest, Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute, for “Trans Psychoanalysis and the High Court” (2023)

Publications

Scholarship

Selected Journalism and Essays

Selected Books Edited or Fact-Checked

Brittany Friedman, Carceral Apartheid (UNC, 2025) · Zahid R. Chaudhary, Paranoid Publics (Fordham, 2025) · Doyle D. Calhoun, The Suicide Archive (Duke, 2024) · Hannah Zeavin, Mother Media (MIT) · Carlin Wing, Bounce (MIT) · John D. Holmes, Without a Trace (Haymarket, 2026) · Christopher Capozzola, Bound by War (Basic, 2020) · Anne Fausto-Sterling, Sexing the Body, reissue (Basic, 2020) · Claire Bond Potter, Political Junkies (Basic, 2020) · Bhaskar Sunkara, The Socialist Manifesto (Basic, 2019)

Teaching

Instructor of Record, Introduction to Psychology, Duquesne University

Pittsburgh · Spring 2023 – Fall 2024

  • Designed and taught PSYC 101 for four semesters; teaching assistant for the course in Fall 2022.

Teaching Assistant, Brooklyn Institute for Social Research

New York · June 2020 – January 2021

  • Six courses with Patrick Blanchfield: Politics and Psychoanalysis (two sections), Freud’s Death Drive, Early Freud, Late Freud, and Narcissism.

Assistant Instructor, After School Matters

Chicago · 2014 – 2015

  • Taught electronics and audio recording to high school students.

Talks, Conferences, and Media

Skills

  • Editing and publishing: developmental, line, and copy editing; fact-checking and pre-publication vetting; commissioning and list-building; launching a magazine; print and digital production; rights and permissions
  • Journalism and research: field reporting in hostile settings; open-source and records investigation; FOIA; trauma-informed interviewing; testimony and human-rights documentation; interviewing through translation
  • Communications: press relations and spokesperson work; crisis communications; speechwriting; briefings and talking points; live television and podcast interviews
  • Video and audio: documentary shooting, editing, color, and sound mixing; scripting and voiceover; captioning; vertical social video; recording engineering and live sound
  • Digital and audience: newsletters; social strategy; WordPress and Substack; Google Analytics and Chartbeat; SEO; CRM and database management
  • Clinical and social work: psychotherapy with individuals, couples, families, and groups; psychological assessment (WAIS, MMPI-2, Rorschach); case formulation; risk assessment and safety planning; clinical documentation; case management and referral; trauma-informed care
  • Teaching and facilitation: syllabus design; undergraduate and adult teaching; seminar and meeting facilitation; youth STEM instruction
  • Research and scholarship: qualitative methods; human-subjects research ethics; academic writing and peer review; conference organizing
  • Management and operations: managing staff, freelancers, and volunteers; remote teams; production scheduling; budgeting and bookkeeping; nonprofit governance and fundraising events; facilities management
  • Organizing: coalition building; union organizing; political education
  • Hands-on and trades: carpentry, construction, and woodworking; basic electrical work and electronics; building maintenance and renovation; deckhand work and vessel upkeep
  • Languages: English (native); Italian (limited working); Spanish (limited); French (limited)

References available on request.