Lisa Gordon

Lisa is the winner of the 9th American Gem Novel Writing Contest 2012/2013. Lisa also scooped 4th prize with another novel. Lisa received an honourable mention for her play Holly Leaves in the Writers Digest Annual Awards. Lisa Jacqueline Gordon was born and brought up in in Johannesburg. She studied BCom Law at Witwatersrand University before going to the UK to complete a BSc. Industrial Economics Hons. She now lives in the UK countryside. Lisa was the winner of the 9th American Gem Literary Award 2013 http://www.newswire.net/newsroom/pr/00079268-thrillerwinsaward.html Lisa studied with the Faculty of Astrological Studies in London and later became a regular guest on BBC WM and BBC Shropshire doing to monthly stars and forecasts for the Birmingham footie teams. Lisa has guested on BBC Coventry and Warks, BBC Cambridge, BBC Northants, TalkSport and Fox FM. Lisa also campaigns agianst injustice and unfair trials abroad. 'Holly Leaves' - a tragic play for stage and radio - is another of Lisa's works and she hopes to release both another thriller and a series of astrology books in the near future. "Growing up in Johannesburg was truly an amazing experience which I will always treasure. It is a city of bright colors, vibrant people, stark contrasts and extremes: extreme wealth, extreme poverty, extreme emotions, extreme thunderstorms, often extreme violence and yet every minute I lived there I felt alive. As I sit here in safe and picturesque England I long to leave this sterility and head for the chaos of Africa where somehow every minute means so much more. Perhaps my image of my homeland is very much my metaphor for life: that at the extremes of existence one is truly living and experiencing this thing we call life to the full. I am incurably inquisitive and if there is something going on on this planet, I want to know about it. At school I was a rebel - no not the sort of rebel who smokes in the loo and makes out behind the bike shed -. I was more of an ideas rebel, I wanted to think for myself and never just accept what I was told. Although I studied Law at Uni, my secret ambition was always to act or work in the arts; but of course you have to keep the family happy by making some sensible decisions you know. I ended up with a degree in Economics, however the economics and financial world never beckoned and so at 23 I took a pretty sharp left turn and decided to study astrology. I have always loved helping people and I am fascinated by the meaning of life, destiny and karma and so I often think it was fate that prompted me to take this direction which in many ways has been a difficult route, but very revealing in terms of self-discovery. I was the resident astrologer on many local UK radio stations for many years. Although my foray into astrology may have left my spiritual life richer, my bank balance was a basket case, so it was back to the drawing board career wise and I began studying to be a Chartered Accountant. Bored to tears with studying audit, I decided to start writing a book one night. I finished my Chartered Accounting exams and two novels at the same time. The strange twists and turns of my own life and my own constant querying over whether I had a destiny or a fate inspired the theme of my novel - A Sealed Fate."