Can you tell us what type of business you run and how long you've been operating this business?

I’m a Crime Novelist and I’ve been writing professionally for over twenty years. I’m also a speaker talking to groups about how to use self-care strategically to improve their business and quality of life.



I’ve been writing stories since I was a small child. As I got older, I was really good at starting longer stories and other artistic projects but never finished any of them. I was good at generating great ideas but I lacked the discipline, back then, to actually mold them into something that others might want to read. Writing a book takes creativity, vision, as well as a lot of discipline and grit.

I actually wrote and finished my first book when I was twenty – a story called Real Horizons about a man who walks cross-country. After that, I wrote other books, and some of the first content I ever had published was poetry. Then I had a lot of short fiction published in literary journals, all the while writing books and sending them to publishers. In the years that I lived in New Mexico, I was a journalist writing articles, features, and columns for a number of magazines, and that type of nonfiction writing was really helpful to the development of my craft as a storyteller.

My first book was accepted for publication in 2000 and published in 2001, a suspense novel called Knee Deep (published under my previous name, Lisa Polisar). And from there I continued writing books and short fiction. Hot House, forthcoming later this month, will be my 8th published novel, with another one due for release (The Ridders) in November of this year. 

The writing world is very competitive, even more so now. Years ago, the landscape was filled with publishers and with them, lots of opportunities for writers. Competition and economic changes necessitate corporate mergers and acquisitions, as a way to streamline the cost of business operations and boost profits.

Accordingly, there is now a much small number of publishers, which means a vastly more competitive landscape for authors looking to bring their work to readers. I’ve always been lucky with selling my books to smaller publishers. It’s a great way to get personal attention, writing support, and build close relationships, and my relationship with my current publisher, Indies United, is no exception. But there’s been a lot of uncertainty and heartache along the way.

What has kept me going is my constant push to create and my undying love of stories – as an escape for not only myself but also for my readers. The job of fiction, above all, is transportation. Readers choose fiction to go somewhere else, as do I as a reader.

Let's talk about the literature that you create, who are your avid readers, and why do you think that your books appeal to them?

I think my stories appeal to fiction readers who love puzzles, love solving puzzles, being challenged by them, they love fast-paced books with complex plots and memorable, relatable characters.

Thriller readers, like mystery readers, are sophisticated and want to learn something but they don’t want everything to be handed to them. Thriller readers want to work for it and don’t mind the challenge as long as you give them the tools they need to figure it out eventually. 

Looking at your fiction novels to-date, do you feel like there are themes or ideas that you tend to gravitate towards? Or does it vary greatly from work to work?

The theme of Hot House (my latest book releasing on June 15, 2022) and all my books is Secrets. Secrets are at the very heart of every book I’ve ever written. Dark secrets. Political secrets. Family secrets. And secrets have power, because they’re built on fear and where there’s fear, there’s leverage.



And my stories always contain a legend. So if secrets are what propel each story forward, there are often layers of them that protect the deepest truth of all – the truth my main character doesn’t want to face but must. That’s what I call the “Legend”.

For you, what are the most challenging craft elements in fiction, and how do you deal with those challenges?

Plotting is always a challenge when writing complex thrillers. And that’s where I really rely on my Editor. She’s now edited several of my books, she knows my writing style, my weaknesses, and I’m learning so much from her expertise. And I also work with other readers, we call them beta readers, who go through the book post-editing to provide late-stage final thoughts and point out things that may have been missed in earlier drafts.

Another challenge is time management, and juggling my schedule so I have time to get the words on the page with a full-time day job and other responsibilities. I work with writing partners and professional writing communities, and we help each other with this, being a sounding board, helping to celebrate wins and successes and listening and providing support when needed. 

Who are the authors or what are the creative works (books, movies, shows, etc.) which have significantly inspired you? Do you see their influence in your work, or is your work very different, even if inspired by those sources?

Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones was probably the most important book I ever read about writing, and I completed my first book after reading that. Also Stephen King’s On Writing was wonderfully influential in getting me to trust my own voice and allow inspiration to emerge along the writing path.

But all kinds of things inspire med; I’m sure most writers would say the same thing. Movies certainly, but also art, music, nature, people. How we use inspiration to turn it into our stories, well, that’s the “magic” of it, right? I have no concrete answer for how that happens. I suspect it’s different for everyone and, even for me personally, I really have no idea because it’s different every time. I’m a very sensitive person, so I’m deeply moved by things.

I’ve been known to cry in response to music, art, all kinds of things. I think my heart is constantly hungry for inspiration, and what I see around me somehow gets fed into the invisible machine that is creativity. It’s a wonderful, beautiful, hilarious, completely chaotic process, which I can’t explain but wouldn’t trade it for anything.