is the author of Fly, My Darling, a love story based on her years together with pianist, singer-songwriter and composer Lynda Roth. A poetic memoir about learning jazz and letting go, it is published by She Writes Press and available for purchase in print, eBook, and audio.

Her themed online series, Searching for the Talisman, is a meditation on family, food, the senses, and the Italian language. Inspired by the 1929 classic Il Talismano della Felicità, Lisa’s collection of twenty-eight essays is a playful, personal inquiry into the culinary and life advice found in the historic cookbook. The essay’s images and chapter titles (Allow for surprise, Know what you love, Lose the guilt, Relish simple goodness…) hint at the underlying search for “the talisman of happiness.”

Her poems, short fiction, and essays have been published in journals and anthologies including Santa Monica Review, Squaw Valley Review, Orange Coast Review, Months to Years, Accolades, BioStories, Beach Reads, Unbroken Journal, Emotional Map of Los Angeles, and Writing in Place: Stories From the Pandemic. A poetry alumna of the Community of Writers, she holds an MFA in fiction, earned her BA in mathematics from the University of Virginia, and in 2002 founded a company teaching computer coding to young people. Lisa grew up on the East Coast, lived years in Europe where her daughter and son were born, and now resides with her partner Paul in Laguna Beach, California.

To settle, to quiet, she wanders into her garden. Such wild abundance! Tomatoes, zucchini, Meyer lemons. Succulent, god-sweetened figs. She sits among them in awe and listens to them grow.