Lisa A. Listwa is wife to the nicest guy on the planet, mother to one glorious handful of a daughter, and reluctant but devoted owner of three rotten cats, affectionately nicknamed “the Rottens.”

Her eclectic career history includes being a legal secretary, member of the human resources staff for a major day-planner calendar company, editorial assistant for an international publishing house, and program director and assistant martial arts instructor for a karate school before finally discovering her calling to teach. She taught high school English and Journalism for fourteen years. And that was a very good thing…

Until it wasn’t.

Much as she thought she would never want to be a stay-at-home mother, Lisa found the pull to be present for her daughter undeniable. After debating the wisdom of it for several years, a series of circumstances occurred that could be interpreted as nothing less than a clear indication that the time was now. Inspired by the words of Henry David Thoreau, “I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.”

Lisa has actually been writing for as long as she can remember. The first time she recalls working under the pressure of a deadline was in the eighth grade for a poetry assignment. Having procrastinated until the last possible minute, she found herself three poems short of the required ten and lacking tangible resources; so she wrote the final three herself and earned an A on the project…because let’s face it. She’s a boss.

Her current works in progress include a children’s series based on the antics of her “Rottens”, a nonfiction work about a family living in what she calls The House That ADHD Built and a science fiction novel inspired by a flash fiction piece written on a dare from her husband. She writes about life, its banalities, and the beauty of living deliberately on her blog, The Meaning of Me.

Lisa holds degrees in Business, English, and Curriculum Development/Instruction, minors in Theology (officially) and Journalism (unofficially), and a teaching certificate in secondary-level English .

She also has second-degree black belt in Karate. She may or may not be a ninja, it all depends on her wardrobe options and quality of  thread count in her outfit.

Currently enrolled in the “Hard Knock Life” school of “Parenting for Dummies”, Lisa often finds herself pondering How to Raise Her Daughter Without Messing Up Too Badly. Degree and bestseller on the topic pending.  Fingers crossed.

Lisa spends her spare time stacking the pile of books she wants to read like a world champion of Jenga. No worries, an intervention was done. She’s still recovering from her book hoarding obsession; not so much from her ongoing existential crisis of wondering whether or not she should have been a Chef .

She is also engaged in an epic yet thoroughly relatable quest to discover where she last left her cell phone.

Lisa is widely published and can be read on her personal blog & her home base The Meaning of Me , follow her on twitter and on Facebook

Guest blogger at concert promoter Pat DiCesare’s blog talking about the importance of music as part of our journey through life.

Guest blogger at Lisa Kramer’s blog Woman Wielding Words for her Celebrating Our Unique Powers Series.

She has guested on Hasty Words as a part of the month long series on bullying , guested for #BeReal Series

Guest author at Vikki Claflin’s blog Laugh Lines for her Finding the Funny series.

An Allergy to Food Dyes Means You Have to Know Your “Safe” Foods Which was published on Exhale Now educating parents on the hidden dangers of foods that could be dangerous for those with allergies.

Here on OTV:

Ain’t Life Grand:  Family Celebrates Everything

We Contain Multitudes

We Rise