Q: Do you know how a story will turn out when you start writing?

A: No, I honestly don't. I start with an idea inspired by something in real life (for the stories behind the books, click on the book covers on the HOME page), and a vague notion of the main character or characters.  From there, the characters take over the story.  I get to know them as you would any real person-on the surface, at first, and then in a deeper sense.  Much of what happens in the story grows out of their hopes, dreams, yearnings, and past experiences.  In my mind, they are real people.  It's often hard for me to remember that they don't really exist out there somewhere.

Q: Your book tour is not coming to my area. How can I purchase autographed copies of your books?

A: Personalized and autographed copies of the books can be ordered via email by pressing the EMAIL LISA button on the HOME page.  All autographed books come with magnetic bookmarks featuring favorite quotes from Grandma Rose and various other characters.

Q: With which age group of readers has Tending Roses been most popular?

A: The reader mail has been equally divided between young women in their twenties, mothers in their thirties and forties, grandmothers in their fifties, and great-grandmothers as old as ninety-two. A minority of the readers are male, but some of the most emotional and heartfelt letters have come from men whose wives or mothers gave them the book to read. Every reader letter and the personal story behind it is a special gift.  It never fails that when I'm having a particularly bad book day (a blue funk, my old neighbor used to call it), someone will send a note of encouragement that fixes everything!

Q: Do you speak to reading clubs, women's groups, writers' clubs, conferences, and church groups?

A: One of the greatest blessings of writing books has been the chance to talk to many different groups of people.  These days I travel quite a bit, speaking to everything from church groups, to civic clubs, book clubs, and writer's groups.  It sometimes makes for a crazy schedule, but when you work at home alone talking to imaginary people all day, it's nice to get out and visit with the real people once in a while.

Q: In what order should I read the books?

A: You can read the books in any order.  As shown on the HOME page, they fall into two series-the Tending Roses (mainstream fiction) series, and the slightly lighter Texas Hill Country series.  Each book is a stand-alone read, so they are not prequel and sequel, per se, but some characters do reoccur.  If you'd like to read the books in the order they were written:  TENDING ROSES, GOOD HOPE ROAD, THE LANGUAGE OF SYCAMORES (and now a fourth book in the works, to be released in July, 2006), and then in the Texas series, TEXAS COOKING, LONE STAR CAFÉ, OVER THE MOON AT THE BIG LIZARD DINER.

Q: Did you study writing in college, and when did you start writing and/or decide you wanted to become a writer?

A:  I have always wanted to be a writer and I started writing stories as soon as I learned to pick up a pencil and create words.  Before that, I was dreaming up stories and telling them to my mother, who says I basically never stopped talking.  I studied writing in college, but not creative writing.  I come from a practical family, and nobody in my family thought of writing as a way to make a living.  In college, I studied technical writing and computer science.  After graduation, I was a technical writer by day and an aspiring novelist by night for about two years, until I started selling freelance work and became a novelist by day and a technical writer by night.  These days, the technology market has passed me by, so now I'm just a novelist.