Lisa on the set of "Blood Angels"

I had a chance to interview Lisa recently and after this brief profile you can listen to a 20 minute conversation I had with her by clicking on the link at the end of this article.

Lisa Morton grew up in Southern California, the only child to a genius father who as a civil engineer contributed to the Mercury Space Program and to the development of the liquid crystal; and to an intelligent, hard working mother who managed bookstores. Her home environment was loving and secure; so how did she become interested in horror fiction? She told me that it was the result of her father taking her to the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea attraction at Disneyland and forcing her to look at the giant Squid. She was “terrified”, she told me. She sold a poem at the age of 5 (it paid in contributors copies). To date, she has written close to two dozen published stories.

She attended high school in San Diego where she found the classes to be very easy. The second major horror related event occurred while in high school; the release of William Friedkin's “The Exorcist”. She has had a lifelong fascination with this film and feels that this film was the main influence on her decision to write horror fiction exclusively. After high school, she attended UCLA film school and then San Diego State University, but quit in her junior year when the head of the film department responded to her request to start learning practical filmmaking techniques with a cynical, “what for, you'll probably never work professionally anyway”. Two months later she was working as a model maker for “Close Encounters: the Special Edition” and “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”. She took particular delight in returning to SDSU and visiting her dept head wearing a “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” crew jacket. Lisa found that a traditional college education was not for her.

While working in the Hollywood special effects industry, Lisa met make up special effects wizard Tom Burman and they collaborated on what is now a cult film, “Meet the Hollowheads”. She went on to write “Adventures in Dinosaur City” for the Disney Channel. After this film, Lisa became involved for several years in the Los Angeles theater scene. She was a founding members of the First Stage Alert Theater Company where she wrote and directed several plays. At Theatre of N.O.T.E., she adapted Philip K. Dick's “Radio Free Albemuth”, which she also directed. After several years spent in theater, she was hired as a staff writer for the animated series “Sky Dancers” and “Van-pires”, the later series notable for being one of the first to make extensive use of 3d animation.

Lisa with one of the props from "Meet the Hollowheads"

Lisa is also the author of three nonfiction works, the first being a biography and critical study of the Hong Kong filmmaker, Tsui Hark (pronounced “Choy Hawk”) which was published by McFarland in 2001. One of the great pleasures in researching the book was to travel to Hong Kong to interview Tsui over the course of a week. There she sat side by side with Hong Kong acting legends Brigitte Lin and Ti Lung, much to Tsui's delight. More recently Lisa has published The Halloween Encyclopedia, a labor of love for the holiday she has been fascinated with since she first went “trick or treating”. The Halloween Encyclopedia has been very well received and has continued to sell consistently, so much so that her publisher, McFarland, is bringing out a second Halloween book in 2008. This new book will consist of most of the hard-to-find historical sources for the Halloween holiday. It will be the first book that collects most of these important essays and articles in a single volume.

Lisa being deliberately scared by her father

In the meantime, Lisa is at work on a new novel set in Los Angeles that deals with the mystery and ghostly happenings surrounding Griffith Park, a large public park in Los Angeles. She told me that she feels this novel with be mostly about “the secret history of Los Angeles”. Having heard some of the strange stories surrounding the creation of Griffith park, I have no doubt Lisa will write something unique and fascinating.

What follows is a 20 minutes conversation with Lisa that took place in her apartment in late September. We talked about her origins as a writer, how she came to write “Tested”, opinions on recent horror films and the current novel she is working on. You'll hear her cat, Roxie, in the background at times. It seems Roxie wanted to be interviewed as well!

Listen to the interview! (mp3 format)

Links:

Lisa Morton's Web Site
Horror Writers Association
The Bram Stoker Awards

Ricky Grove [gToon], Contributing Columnist with the Renderosity Front Page News. Ricky Grove is a bookstore clerk at the best bookstore in Los Angeles, the Iliad Bookshop. He's also an actor and machinima filmmaker. He lives with author, Lisa Morton, and three very individual cats. Ricky is into Hong Kong films, FPS shooters, experimental anything and reading, reading, reading. You can catch his blog here.