Lisa still stumbles when people ask her about home. Raised in Australia, Bangladesh, the States, and Zimbabwe, she has also lived in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Croatia.

As of July 2010, she is living in Laos.

(How she got to Laos is a long story that began with writing letters to someone in Papua New Guinea named Mike and ended in marriage about a year later. Or perhaps it began with marriage and ended about a year after that when Lisa and Mike decided that spending half their time on separate continents was not their preferred operating system for said marriage.)

In Australia, Lisa worked as a forensic psychologist with the police, in a maximum security men’s prison, and on a child death review team. In Croatia, Lisa worked with a development organization as a stress management trainer. In Indiana, Lisa earned a masters degree in International Peace Studies at Notre Dame University. In Los Angeles, Lisa directed the Headington Institute’s training and education programs, providing psychological and spiritual support services to humanitarian workers around the world. In Laos, while Mike is hard at work for a humanitarian organization, Lisa lies in a hammock by the Mekong River and drinks mango smoothies.

Well, sometimes, anyway. The rest of the time she is writing or working as a consultant.

Lisa’s first book, my hands came away red, was published in 2007 and was nominated for a Christy Award in 2008. Her essays and articles have appeared in a number of different magazines. She is currently working on her second book.