Before emigrating with his family to Australia in 1958, Alex Skovron lived in Israel for 15 months. He attended Randwick Boys High School from 1961 to 1965, and gained a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) degree in Political Science from the University of New South Wales in 1970 and a Master of Arts degree in Government from the University of Sydney in 1972. While studying for his Master of Arts degree, he also tutored part-time.
From 1972 to 1977 he worked on the editorial staff of The Australian Encyclopaedia, 3rd ed. (Grolier) and from 1977 to 1979 he was general editor of The Concise Encyclopaedia of
Australia (Horwitz). He spent part of 1979 overseas and, at the end of that year, moved to Melbourne where he worked as an educational editor with Macmillan, and later as senior editor with Century Hutchinson and with Dent/Houghton Mifflin.
His work has been published widely and he has been the recipient of literary awards for his poetry writing. His collection of poems, The Rearrangement, was highly commended in the 1989 NSW State Literary Awards also. His work has been read on ABC Radio, and he has read on SBS TV, as well as at numerous public forums in Melbourne since 1984.