Life & Work with Nicholas Davidge and Alana White of Altadena, CA

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nicholas Davidge and Alana White.

Hi Nicholas Davidge and Alana White, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Nick grew up in Portishead in the UK. In high school, he and three of his friends started a band called Airbus, with Nick as the lead singer/songwriter and guitarist. Their unique sound got them signed with BMG, which led to them touring the UK and the US. While touring the US, Nick met his wife, Brenda, and shortly after, permanently moved to Los Angeles. Although Airbus still performs together and continues to release albums, in 2002 the members decided to pursue their own personal projects.

Nick became a creative director in the advertising world and one of the four founders of GreenLight Media & Marketing, which later became the in-house content studio at Live Nation. Over the years, Nick’s love of storytelling expanded beyond the visual medium of branded content and short films to include short stories and screenplays. Most recently, Nick partnered with Alana White to publish BURNED, a multi-genre collection of stories, essays, poems, and artwork exploring fire—in ways both real and imagined—and its impact on our lives. Creating BURNED was Nick’s way of finding meaning and hope after his home in Altadena was destroyed in the Eaton Fire and channeling his grief and empathy into something lasting and constructive.

Alana was born in the Midwest but spent the majority of her childhood running the streets of Orange County and then later Danville, in the San Francisco Bay Area. She returned to Southern California to attend UCLA and then graduate school at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. She’s lived in the Pasadena area ever since, and after working on staff for several years at RSA Films (Ridley Scott’s commercial production company), she started her own business as a commercial treatment writer, helping commercial directors and production companies such as RadicalMedia, Tool of NA, and RSA Films craft creative pitches for national and international ad campaigns. In 2025, Alana stepped away from the commercial world to co-run an expert witness/consulting business and write in the legal space. For the last eight years, Alana has also published paranormal romance/urban fantasy novels under a pen name. BURNED is her first literary work published under her own moniker.

Nick and Alana met in 2019 through the LA Derby Dolls (LADD), LA’s premier banked-track roller derby league. Nick serves on LADD’s board of directors and his wife is one of the league’s home team skaters, while Alana is a member of The Enforcers, the league’s team of referees. Alana was one of the first writers Nick asked to join BURNED, and soon after, her role naturally expanded to include co-editor of the project. While this marks Nick and Alana’s first joint venture, they have met regularly over the past few years to share creative work, trade ideas, and support one another’s writing. Their mutual love of film (especially horror and sci-fi), dark humor, and game nights quickly cemented their friendship and ultimately laid the groundwork for them to collaborate on BURNED.

As a creative director, Nick has crossed paths with many creatively minded people over the years—individuals from different walks of life with unique points of view. Not all of them are writers by trade, but every one of them had a story to tell, and he invited them to bring their unique perspectives to the BURNED anthology. Part coping mechanism, part exorcism, the book set out to find something positive in the ashes of tragedy and, by donating its proceeds to Side Street Projects, help the creative communities in Altadena continue to recover.

While the heart of this project was forged in Altadena, California—and includes stories from several writers who lost their homes in the Eaton Fire—BURNED’s authors hail from communities across California, with some even from as far away as the United Kingdom. They include the best-selling author and co-host of the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast, Sona Movsesian; an Emmy Award–winning writer; an Emmy Award–winning producer; a crime scene investigator; Peter Gabriel’s graphic designer; the Programs Coordinator for the Pasadena Audubon Society; independent filmmakers; a comedian; a professor; and members of the LA Derby Dolls roller derby league.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The road to publishing BURNED has definitely not been smooth but it has been incredibly gratifying.

Nick began creating BURNED just a few weeks after the Eaton Fire. He and his family were still struggling to come to terms with the loss of their home, along with all of the possessions and mementos that had shaped and chronicled their lives. Processing those emotions, and the destructive nature of fire, even as he was himself exploring fire in all its forms, was a challenging journey but one that helped him process the loss.

For Alana, organizing and wrangling twenty-four writers, some of whom had never publicly shared their work before, was the biggest, albeit fun challenge. It was rewarding for Nick and Alana to watch their stories evolve with each draft and see how distinct they were from one another, while at times sharing overlapping themes and ideas. But keeping track of that many writers was not for the faint of heart!

Self-publishing the book also came with a steep learning curve. Nick and Alana’s determination to ensure the final product was professional, high-quality, and an experience the readers would truly enjoy made it a painstaking process but in the end they both love what they’ve achieved. They can’t wait for the readers to lose themselves in each story and discover how this collective exploration of fire unfolds.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
As a creative and commercial director, Nick is passionate about purpose-driven storytelling that blends innovation and culture. He has an eye for bold visuals and how those visuals can incite the emotions of the viewers. With BURNED, he was able translate his visually evocative style to the written word and to the graphics he designed throughout the book.

As a commercial treatment writer, Alana spent two decades learning and understanding the voices of her clients and making sure what she wrote on their behalf captured their creative voices and vision. Honing that skill has instinctually helped her flesh out the characters in her own writing and give those characters distinct, complex, engaging personalities.

Nick and Alana are both incredibly proud of the rich and unique experience they and the rest of the BURNED authors have created. The book will make you laugh, make you cry, and make you glad you read it. And they will always be proud of that.

Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
We see taking risks as an essential part of expanding our creativity and creative reach. It’s the willingness to move beyond the limits of our own comfort zones that allows us to live in a place of curiosity and, more importantly, discovery. Sometimes those discoveries are big; sometimes they’re small. But they always broaden our minds and our perspectives on the world.

Nick is a born risk taker. He came to the United States as the lead singer, lyricist, and guitarist for the English rock band Airbus and, from there, expanded into writing, became a creative director in the advertising world, and then a commercial and content director. He’s always been willing to go out on a limb in pursuit of creativity and, particularly with BURNED, engage his creativity as a form of catharsis.

Alana is a big believer in calculated risk. She moves through the world with a measure of circumspection and fact-gathering, but always with an eye out for the interesting places the road can take her and the attitude of “Let’s give it a try.” As a writer, working on BURNED—with so many other authors and collaborating with Nick—was a creative risk she absolutely had to take.

Pricing:

• Hardcover: $35.95
• Paperback: $24.99
• Ebook: $14.99

Contact Info:

• Website: www.BurnedProject.com
• Instagram: @Burned_Project
• Facebook: www.facebook.com\BurnedProject