Lisa Mangum has been hooked on books and libraries since her very first library “job” helping in the grade school library during recess. Since then she’s worked in libraries, bookstores and publishing companies, and now is working on turning her first two books into a trilogy. She is the daughter of a writing mother, so it was natural her life would end up centered around books.
Lisa Mangum, Mormon author
Lisa, a Mormon who lives in Taylorsville, Utah, is the author of The Hourglass Door, published by Shadow Mountain. The Hourglass Door is a supernatural story for teenagers, but with an emphasis on romance. It concerns a teenager named Abby who has a perfect life—until a tall, dark, handsome, and mysterious Italian stranger arrives in town as an exchange student. Dante Alexander is about to change everything. He might be an exchange student from Italy, but he has traveled further than she realized at first—he got here in a time machine built by Leonardo da Vinci, and now he and he friends need to get back home. This book was named 2009 Book of the Year for independently published young adult fiction. Her second book, The Golden Spiral, was released in May. In this book, Lisa has to rebuild the time machine and save Dante, but his time traveling friend Zo is complicating matters by trying to change history—Lisa’s history, to be exact. What will happen to Abby and Dante’s relationship?
Lisa is a young wife and an acquisitions editor—someone who decides what books get published. That is probably a big help for a writer, since it means she is used to evaluating what is publishable and what isn’t. She is certain to have read lots of good and bad manuscripts, so when it came time to write her own, she was ready to go. That doesn’t mean it was easy—writing is hard work, no matter how prepared you are.
She makes good use of all her time, even writing on the train to work each day. However, her favorite setting for work is on the sofa with music playing and a cat on her legs while she types on her laptop. With a job, a husband , and a home to care for, she has to write when she has time. And of course, now that she is a popular author, she also has promotional work like book signings to add to her schedule. Since she grew up shy, it’s been a change for her to learn to speak to large groups, but it comes with the job. You can visit her website, which has a blog, to see just how busy she really is.