Lisa Lacriola is a writer, poet, and essayist in the Chicagoland area. An excerpt of her memoir-in-process was published in Minerva Rising in 2012 under the pen name T. Langdon Squire. She has received two awards of merit from National Louis University’s journal, Mosaic, for her non-fiction essays “Like a Phoenix I Rise” in 2017 and “Transitions” in 2019. She briefly had a bi-weekly column, “Squire’s Corner” that was published for www.IllinoisEagle.com. In addition, she was featured in Jack Rinella’s online publication, Leather Views, Issue #23 in 2009, for her article “Wherefore Art Thou Lesbian”. Book Three: Evolution in The Order of the Wolf: Species Chronicles will be forthcoming in the near future. For more information on Lisa, please check out her blogsite at http://thrusquireseyes.squarespace.com/.
A Little Extra About Me
I’ve been writing since I was in grade school. The first story I wrote was The Haunted House. The cover was put together with the use of thin cardboard and black felt and it was donated to my grammar school’s fun fair and purchased by my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Kelly. I’ve honed my craft since then, relying on poetry as a kind of therapy as I became an adult, especially after telling my parents, I was gay, when I graduated high school.
Never one to get discouraged, I persevered, majoring in English at Northeastern Illinois University where I received my B.A. in 2010. It wasn’t until I got accepted into National Louis University’s M.S. in Written Communications Program, that I grew as a writer and expanded my repertoire to include fiction, non-fiction, prose, as well as, erotica. When I graduated in 2020, I officially began working on The Order of the Wolf. The story that started as my thesis project became my first full-length fiction novel.
Whenever asked, I’d say that music has influenced my writing heavily. There’s something so melodic, rhythmic, and magical about stanzas and words expressing a feeling or story. I’ve been fortunate to have lived an extraordinary life so my writing is a reflection of those experiences, some positive, others, negative. I’ve never limited myself, whether personally or in my writing pursuits. I’m a firm believer that life is meant to be lived, not observed through narrow lenses.