Lisa Teasley

Lisa Teasley
Born (1964-07-22) July 22, 1964 (age 62)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
OccupationAuthor
Writing career
GenreLiterary Fiction
Notable works"Fluid," Dive, Heat Signature, Glow in the Dark

Lisa Teasley is an American writer and artist. Her first book, the story collection Glow in the Dark (2002) won the Gold Pen and Pacificus Foundation awards. Her second and third books, the novels Dive (2004) and Heat Signature (2006), address gender, race, intercultural and justice issues. Teasley’s fourth book is the story collection Fluid (2023). She is the writer and presenter of the BBC television documentary “High School Prom” (2006), and the librettist of the opera The Passion of Nell, for Long Beach Opera, 2026. She was the Senior Editor, Fiction for the Los Angeles Review of Books from 2016-2021. She lives in Los Angeles and Mendocino.

Early life and education

Lisa Teasley was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, to Larkin Teasley and Violet Teasley. Her father was African-American and former CEO of the largest black-owned insurance company Golden State Mutual in the U.S., her mother was Panamanian and an accessories designer. Teasley studied English literature and Creative Writing at UCLA. She studied art on summer scholarship at Otis/Parsons. Her first job was a paid internship with the Los Angeles Times, and then she worked as a researcher for Forbes magazine.

Visual art

Lisa Teasley is also a visual artist. As a painter, she has had a one-woman show at the Watts Towers Art Center, with John Outterbridge as director and curator. Her group shows include Brockman Gallery, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's Rental & Sales Gallery, and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. Teasley was a member of the former art collective HowDoYouSayYaminAfrican?, aka the Yams, who debuted their first film at the 2014 Whitney Biennial.

Bibliography

Anthologies

Short stories

Essays

Poetry

Awards and honors

Literary Journals

Alta Journal

Black Clock

Kweli Journal

The Markaz Review

Parabola Magazine

Red Canary Magazine

Zyzzyva

References

  1. ↑ "Adventures in the Skin Trade | Village Voice". Archived from the original on September 1, 2017. Retrieved 2017-09-01.
  2. 1 2 "2002 Gold Pen Award Winners". fictiondb.com. Retrieved 2017-09-01.
  3. 1 2 Page, Yolanda Williams (2007-01-30). Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 9780313334290.
  4. 1 2 Teasley, Lisa (2004). Dive (1st U.S. ed.). New York: Bloomsbury. ISBN 9781582343983. OCLC 52602745.
  5. 1 2 Teasley, Lisa (2006). Heat signature : a novel (1st U.S. ed.). New York: Bloomsbury Pub. ISBN 9781596919204. OCLC 607775184.
  6. 1 2 "Fluid: Stories". Cune Press. Retrieved 2025-07-14.
  7. ↑ "Lisa Teasley". IMDb. Retrieved 2017-09-01.
  8. ↑ "Lisa Teasley — Award-Winning Author and Accomplished Visual Artist". Long Beach Opera. Retrieved 2025-07-14.
  9. ↑ "LARB's Best: Fiction". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2025-07-14.
  10. ↑ "LAist Interview: Lisa Teasley". LAist. Archived from the original on 2017-11-05. Retrieved 2017-09-01.
  11. ↑ Larkin Teasley, president and chief executive officer of Golden State Mutual, speaks at the 75th anniversary celebration of the company, 2000, retrieved 2025-07-14
  12. ↑ Johnson, Reed (2002-02-24). "Words From a Street-Smart Tale Teller". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2017-09-01.[dead link]
  13. ↑ Nicholson, Joy (2004-05-27). "Chewing Tobacco and Big Feet". L.A. Weekly. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 "Summer Happenings at The Broad: Oracle". thebroad.org. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  15. ↑ Teasley, Lisa (2002). Glow in the dark (1st ed.). Seattle: Cune Press. ISBN 9781885942197. OCLC 49218676.
  16. ↑ Teasley, Lisa (2006). Dive : a NOVEL. New York: Bloomsbury Usa. ISBN 9781582344744. OCLC 141382308.
  17. ↑ Bloomsbury.com. "Glow in the Dark". Bloomsbury Publishing. Retrieved 2017-09-01.
  18. ↑ "Flash Fiction America". wwnorton.com. Retrieved 2025-07-15.
  19. ↑ "California – The Passenger" (in Italian). Retrieved 2025-07-15.
  20. ↑ Davis, Brian Joseph; Halper, Jenny; Menlove, Leia; Urbanski, Debbie; Gray, Amelia; Gay, Roxane; Robinson, Shannon; Fiorentino, Jon Paul; Warnes, Bryce (2013-05-02). Retro Vol. 1 No 3: Selections from Joyland Magazine. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 9781482736984.
  21. ↑ "A0women on the Edge 2c Toby Press 2c 2005 - AbeBooks". abebooks.com. Retrieved 2017-09-01.
  22. ↑ "9780393050677: Shaking the Tree: A Collection of Fiction and Memoir by Black Women - AbeBooks: 039305067X". abebooks.com. Retrieved 2017-09-01.
  23. ↑ "A0brown Sugar 4 2c Published by Simon 26 Schuster 2c 2005 - AbeBooks". abebooks.com. Retrieved 2017-09-01.
  24. ↑ "9780743466868: Brown Sugar 3: When Opposites Attract - AbeBooks: 0743466861". abebooks.com. Retrieved 2017-09-01.
  25. ↑ Taylor, Carol, ed. (2001-01-02). Brown Sugar: A Collection of Erotic Black Fiction (Gift Inscription on Fep ed.). New York: Plume. ISBN 9780452282247.
  26. ↑ "9780471380603: Step into a World: A Global Anthology of the New Black Literature - AbeBooks: 0471380601". abebooks.com. Retrieved 2017-09-01.
  27. ↑ Powell, Kevin (October 1992). Baraka, Ras (ed.). In the Tradition: An Anthology of Young Black Writers. New York: Writers & Readers. ISBN 9780863163159.
  28. ↑ Moses, Kate; Peri, Camille (2009-10-13). Because I Said So: 33 Mothers Write About Children, Sex, Men, Aging, Faith, Race, and Themselves. HarperCollins e-books.
  29. ↑ Davis, Scott C., ed. (August 1997). An Ear to the Ground: Essays from 75 New American Writers Plus Guest Writers Vaclav Havel, Horton Foote, and Arun Gandhi (Gift Inscription on Fep ed.). Seattle, WA: Cune Press. ISBN 9781885942562.
  30. ↑ "9781574780178: Beyond the Frontier: African American Poetry for the 21st Century - AbeBooks: 1574780174". abebooks.com. Retrieved 2017-09-01.