Lisa was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey in 1960. Looking for greener (and sunnier) pastures, her parents moved her and her brothers to Southern California in the early 1970s. She attended Sonoma State University, UC Irvine, and UC Santa Cruz, for two majors: Biology and Theater Arts.

After she received her Masters in Cultural Anthropology from Brown University she moved to Seattle where she became a research and marketing consultant in numerous fields. More interesting projects included: looking at the effects of Superfund sites on wetlands for the EPA; writing biographies of physicists for Corbis Corporation's CD-ROM, Critical Mass: America's Race to Build the Atomic Bomb; representing American companies in joint-venture projects with Russia and the Czech Republic; marketing genetics software to animal breeders.

Lisa met her husband and best friend, Victor (a fabulously popular middle-school teacher), on a blind date in 1994. They played pool. He didn't let her take a bad shot over, saying, "I don't know where you're from, but I'm from New York and in New York we don't let people take their shots over." He left her a bouquet of lavender and a 3-course Indian meal on her doorstep after their next date. Married a few months later, during their six-week honeymoon, they backpacked in and around numerous national parks and forests in the Western United States and Canada.

Lisa became a contractor for the Microsoft Corporation, where she was co-creator and editor-in-chief of Microsoft's first online magazine, "Matter," and then became a producer and editor of other Microsoft websites, producing segments for experimental web shows featuring such personalities as John Ratzenberger, Gilbert Gottfried, Dr. Ruth, Captain Kangaroo, Jim Carroll, and the Car Talk Guys.

After two years of 60-hour work weeks, Lisa and Victor quit their jobs, put everything they had in storage, and traveled in Europe and East Africa. Upon returning only three months into what was to be a year-long journey, they decided to move to a small town in the foothills of the Sierras where they could live a simpler life surrounded by wilderness. They bought and renovated an 1871 farmhouse, and adopted two cats and a dog (Mike, Rex, and Rivers, respectively). Victor teaches at a Blue Ribbon-winning arts-based charter elementary school, and Lisa took some time to do what she always wanted to do: dedicate herself to writing.