Alex DeMille is a director, film editor, and author of the New York Times bestselling novel The Deserter (written with Nelson DeMille). He grew up on Long Island and received a BA from Yale University and an MFA in film directing from UCLA. He has won multiple awards and fellowships for his screenplays and films, including The Absence, which was named Best Film at Comic-Con in 2012. He has edited numerous commercials, shorts, and independent feature films, among them My Nephew Emmett, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short in 2018. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter.