Lisa was born in San Francisco to a woman who would now be called a single mother; back then, however she was considered a woman who, knocked up by a married man, was in a lot of trouble. After her mother had read enough obituaries to find one for an age-appropriate man killed in a car accident, she filled in the birth certificate with his name. Ever resourceful, she then returned home to her own mother in Philadelphia when Lisa was seventeen months old with her well-memorized tale of sudden tragedy and widowhood. Nana was less than welcoming. Lisa acquired a stepfather at ten, and the first novel she read apart from those in the Nancy Drew series was The Godfather, spirited away from her new daddy. What a great read!—and an education, too.
A trip to Italy mysteriously started her writing. Thereafter, she returned every summer, adopted by the workers at the Hotel Caprice in Rome, who taught her vulgar Italian and showed her many points of interest. They all had great stories to tell.
Lisa, a lifelong appreciator of people with interesting back-stories, found those in theater. Beginning as a stage mother at the legendary Bucks County Playhouse (eldest daughter and son were child actors), she work there for seven years, her duties alternating between house managing, box office sales, plunging toilets, and replacing urinal cakes in the men’s room. That led to playwriting and a few modest productions in New York City.
A born cinephile, Lisa wrote two screenplays that won Best Comedy at the Houston International Film Festival in 2006 and 2007. In 2016, The Humane Society of the United States awarded her two weeks at a writers’ retreat in Maine, where she started an anthology of dog stories: Jethro, The Dog Who Was My Second Husband, and other dogs who have replaced people nicely in my life.
Lisa still lives in Bucks County with her second husband (third, if you count Jethro), her youngest daughter, two dogs, and a cat. When not stealing time to write, she can be found at an adjudicated facility, teaching English, writing, film, and crocheting to male sex offenders.
Regal House Publishing is delighted to bring you Lisa DeAngelis’ novel in the fall of 2021.
