Featured Interview With Lisa Orban
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
Lisa Orban was born in Galesburg, IL in 1969. She was moved by her parents (without even asking!) to Quincy as a small child. Bouncing from parent to parent, and house to house until at 16 she was given a broader tour of the state courtesy of foster care.
At 18, she voluntarily left for Phoenix with a high school friend where she lived for three years. After returning to Quincy, she went to college and earned an Associates of Arts in Psychology, with a minor in Art. Over the years she has held many jobs, but never quite found the right one. She has written poetry and short stories on a variety of subjects from raising children to finance for online publication. Finally in 2013, after much urging from her friends for years, she sat down one day and started writing about her life.
She is the mother of five children, all grown and gone, except her youngest. Which she is sure is trying to drive her mad (as all teenagers do) and has plans to write another book in the future about their childhood, much to their anticipated dismay.
She currently lives in her hometown, in the house she loves, and at the center of the chaos she enjoys so much. Often surrounded by her children, her loves, friends and the strays (both two legged and four) she takes in. She continues to seek out new adventures, misadventures and new mistakes to fill the pages of her next book, laughing as she goes.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I did not learn to read until close to 4th grade. I have dyslexia, which back then was not something they tested for or understood well. When suddenly one day, all those jumble of letters fell into place, and I began to understand what they meant. In less than a year I went from unable to read to reading on a college level. It was like a whole new world suddenly had opened up to me and I couldn’t get enough of it.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I have a love of books, so much so I remodeled my dining room and converted it into a library. I have over 5000 books in my home, ranging from SciFi to Science and quite a bit in between. I love Heinlein, Rice, King and Fiest, there’s just too many to count or list here.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
Many years ago my friends and I would sit around and play what we called “Jerry Springer: the Home Game”. The object of the game was to see how many upcoming shows we qualified for, with the story to support our claim, and whoever had the most at the end of the program won. I was the reigning champion. This book started off as just a lighthearted collection of anecdotes, stories shared with friends over the years to both the horror and delight of my audience. But as I began to write I realized that the humor of my life comes not from the light moments, but the dark, and without those moments being included much of the humor would be lost without that context. This book is a bit darker than I initially intended, but I hope that while reading this I can make you smile, even on occasion laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of the situations I have found myself in over the years, and that you, like me, can find the humor in all the dark places. I do not believe I have any wisdom to share in this telling, nor is it even an inspirational tale of achievement by overcoming adversity, it is simply my life that I have survived. For better or worse, this is the mostly true, fairly accurate, and almost completely factual account of my life. Some liberties have been taken to protect the somewhat innocent and a few small embellishments were made for the sake of a good story.
This book was a labor of love, and insanity, that took around three years to write. It may have been the hardest, yet most satisfying thing I have ever done in my life.
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