About the author...

Lisanne has always been a writer by dedication, starting to write when she was 8 "because I couldn't find enough of the books I liked to read", she says. When she was 16, she had to abandon her novel about Martians visiting Earth to form a rock band because America had just landed on the moon and the rest of the solar system suddenly seemed to have moved a lot closer. Space travel was no longer a myth, and travelling to the other planets of our solar system did not seem to be science-fiction any longer. Trying to go further away from Earth, out into the depths of space she had finished her first trilogy by the time she was 21. "A lost world clone, nothing special", she claims.

Lisanne had left school at 17 to study jewellery design at Glasgow School of Art in the tradition of her family, but after two years she gave up and began a teaching course. During this there was little time left for her to pursue her writing talent. She worked as a teacher for six years until she broke up with her first husband. She moved from Glasgow to Norwich, where she still lives today, becoming an active member of "The Vikings" re-enactment society, turning into an expert in swordfighting and archery. During the next 20 years in Norwich, she had her son and built a new life.

Back in 1978, her cat Tal inspired Lisanne to write a short story about a black kitten walking through snow. This short story eventually grew into a full-fledged science-fiction novel. Two of her friends, who believed in Lisanne's true talents, finally nagged her enough to finish the book. This book became her breakthrough as a professional writer. Its name was "Turning Point" and it was published by DAW books in 1993. And this was only the beginning. What began as a simple, action-loaded love story between a young woman and an anthropomorphic feline grew into a highly complex science fiction saga in six books with still no end in sight: The Sholan Alliance Series. Until now, the series consists of: Turning Point (1993), Fortune's Wheel (1995), Fire Margins (1996), Razor's Edge (1997) Dark Nadir (1998) and Stronghold Rising, due out on June 12th 2000.

Beyond the Sholan Alliance books, Lisanne has also been working on some short stories for several anthologies like "The Jewel and the Demon" for Martin Greenberg and Larry Seagrif's "Battle Magic" and "The Wild Hunt" for an Anthology called "Merlin". The second Mouse story "To Catch a Thief" has just been released in Martin Greenberg and Larry Segriff's anthology called "Spell Fantastic".

Lisanne has a wide and ever growing span of interests. Learning is an on-going experience for her. Her writing has taken her down many an interesting thoroughfare and alley of research. Her main interests are in paleontology, ancient civilizations, particularly the Minoans and Ancient Egyptians, and the history of the Old testament times, which she studied at college. The Minoan culture forms a basis for a lot of the Sholan buildings and their love of murals in their homes. And the climate of Crete, too, which she describes as "absolute heaven at 100 degrees in the shade and no humidity!"

Some of the ongoing interests she studies while working on the Scholan Alliance books are genetics, the workings of the human mind, how memories are stored and accessed, how religions evolve to fulfill the needs of the community to which they belong, and of course, the care, developmental stages and behaviour of cats, both large and small.

Unfortunately, she suffers from a spinal problem, landing her permanently in a wheelchair some years ago. She has no intention of slowing down, however and her friends from The Vikings have already begun plans to transform her scooter into a battle wagon, complete with scythes on the wheels.

She loves films and her favourite action heroes are Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean Claude van Damme, Steven Segal, Harrison Ford and Sean Connery.

Lisanne has been an active British SF fan since 1977, being one of the very few fans who made the dream of being an SF writer come true. She has been a con-goer ever since, and has been invited to conventions all over the world, like: Confurence 9 (1998), Eurofurence 5 (1999) Conifur Northwest 2 (1999) Dragoncon in Atlanta (2000) and Paragon (2001).