Lisa Klein
I was born in Peoria, Illinois, the third of seven children. My dad was a newspaper writer, and my mom was briefly a research biologist. I grew up out in the boondocks and spent all my spare time reading. When I was eight years old, I wrote my first essay, entitled "My Bad Day." It only made my parents laugh. I read "Heidi," by Johanna Spyri, and bawled at the ending, then tried to write an adaptation for my friends to act out at recess, but they weren't interested. In high school I wrote a sad story about a dog that got its head stuck in a mayonnaise jar, and in college I wrote a bad story about a Greyhound bus trip. I wrote no more fiction until I was in my forties, when I finally felt I had some good stories to tell.
College and Teaching
I majored in English and Theology at Marquette University, and since I couldn't imagine what to do with such a a major, I went on to Indiana University and got a Ph.D. in literature. My dissertation was published and now gathers dust in university libraries. Then I was an assistant professor at The Ohio State University, where I taught a lot of Shakespeare and did research on the writings and domestic culture of Renaissance women. I published articles on poetry, Queen Elizabeth, and women's needleworks, receiving several grants for this research. (Can you tell I LOVE the Elizabethan period?) Then I was denied tenure, and I decided to stay at home, raise my two sons, and try my hand at writing. (Recently I have taught creative writing at Ohio Northern University and at the Thurber House in Columbus.)
Return to Writing
In 1999 I began writing the history of Trinity Episcopal Church in Columbus. It was exciting to research something that no one had ever written about before. I discovered a passion for history and storytelling. At the same time, because I was reading lots of children's books with my sons, I offered to help organize a local conference, "Writing for Children" and ended up directing it for three years. I got to know several children's book authors and thought, If they can do it, why can't I? I started on Ophelia, a story that grew out of my teaching experience. Just weeks after landing an agent, I had two offers and I chose Bloomsbury! At that point I realized that yes, it was possible for me to succeed as a writer.
Two Girls of Gettysburg grew out of a family vacation to Gettysburg and the question "How did the mothers and daughters and sisters experience the Civil War?" The idea for Lady Macbeth's Daughter seized me and took me a thousand years back in time and all the way to Scotland. A nonfiction book about the Roanoke colony sparked my curiosity and Cate of the Lost Colony is my attempt to solve that long-ago mystery. The cross-dressing character of Long Meg is derived from The Roaring Girl, a seventeenth-century play, and Love Disguised is a compendium of Shakespeare's comedies I so love. I wanted to see if I could write something light and funny for a change.
What's next is something very different. Stay tuned.
Hobbies
I love to read almost as much as I love to write. I read close to a hundred books a year, fiction and non-fiction, several in German--just because. In my spare time I like to work in my garden and paddle my SUP (the opposite of an SUV). I'm also proficient at cooking, traveling, and thrift shopping.
I live in Columbus, Ohio, with my husband, a financial planner. We have two grown sons.
