After service in the 11th and 82nd Airborne divisions of the U.S. Army, he graduated from San Francisco State College (English, 1960) and Columbia University (Journalism, 1963).
In the early 1960s Alverson was an assistant editor (under Harvey Kurtzman) of Help!, taking over after Gloria Steinem and followed by Terry Gilliam,[1] and then a reporter for The Wall Street Journal.
After living in Radnorshire, mid-Wales from 1970 to 1975, Alverson moved to Cambridge, England, where he was an activist, including a month-long vigil against the United States's bombing of Iraq in 1990 and resistance to Margaret Thatcher's poll tax.
[citation needed] Alverson was co-screenwriter of Terry Gilliam's film Jabberwocky, and co-developer of the story[1] and co-writer (uncredited) of the first draft of the screenplay that became Brazil (1985).
"[2] In the crime fiction bibliography, Golden Gate Mysteries, Randal Brandt wrote: Alverson's credits also included children's books, short stories and short film scripts, some of which have recently been adapted to comics by the cartoonist John Linton Roberson, including Rapunzel and the parody the Story of OH!