A rare Southern California native, my career as a professional writer began in 1988 with the horror-fantasy feature film Meet the Hollowheads, on which I also served as Associate Producer; the film (which starred John Glover and Juliette Lewis) screened at many film festivals around the world, and won the Grand Prix award at London’s Odeon Film Festival.

In 1994 I turned my attention to fiction, and sold my first short story, "Sane Reaction", to the Stephen Jones/David Sutton anthology Dark Voices 6. Since then I've sold more than three dozen short stories, to (among others) The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein (Carroll and Graf), Dark Terrors (Victor Gollancz), Horrors: 365 Scary Stories! (Barnes and Noble), The Museum of Horrors (Leisure Books), Dark Delicacies: Original Tales of Terror and the Macabre (Carroll and Graf), Mondo Zombie (Cemetery Dance Publications), and Dark Passions: Hot Blood 13 (Kensington). My story "Tested", which appeared in issue #55 of Cemetery Dance magazine, won the 2006 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction.

My non-fiction work has appeared in Horror magazine and the HWA handbook On Writing Horror (2nd edition), and I'm the author of three books of non-fiction, The Cinema of Tsui Hark, The Halloween Encyclopedia, A Hallowe'en Anthology: Literary and Historical Writings Over the Centuries, and Savage Detours: The Life and Work of Ann Savage (forthcoming), all published by McFarland. A Hallowe'en Anthology was nominated for the Black Quill Award and won the Bram Stoker Award for Nonfiction.

In addition to the six feature films produced from my screenplays, I've also written dozens of episodes of various animated television series, and I've written, directed and produced short and full-length plays for the stage.

I'm an active member of the Horror Writers Association, and have twice won the President's Richard Laymon Award (in 2005 and 2006) from the organization. I'm also an active member of Mystery Writers of America.

I am represented by Robert Fleck of Professional Media Services.

(For "Sparks Fly Upward" from Mondo Zombie, reprinted in The Living Dead) "Recently prolific anthologist Adams (Seeds of Change) delivers a superb reprint anthology that runs the gamut of zombie stories. There's plenty of gore, highlighted by Stephen King's “Home Delivery” and David Schow's classic “Blossom.” Less traditional but equally satisfying are Lisa Morton's “Sparks Fly Upward,” which analyzes abortion politics in a zombified world, and Douglas Winter's literary pastiche “Less than Zombie.” - Publishers Weekly

(For "Black Mill Cove" from Dark Delicacies: Original Tales of Terror and the Macabre) "Two standouts, Lisa Morton's story of a solitary abalone forager stumbling across a mass murderer, and Playboy cartoonist Gahan Wilson's about a macabre artist whose grim subjects may be all too real, sell the volume all on their own." – Booklist

(For "El Cazador" from After Shocks) "Lisa Morton's "El Cazador"... decode[s] dark truths encrypted in the tags of Los Angeles graffiti artists...all well written, the stories... suggest that their horror is more a universal idiom than a regional dialect." - Publishers Weekly

(For "Poppi's Monster" from The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein) "There are a few stories which affected me deeply. Lisa Morton's 'Poppi's Monster' brought a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye. The story follows the life of Stacey, daughter of Poppi, her drunken and violent father. The piece has great depth and beauty in its simplicity, and I felt for the child trapped in a world not of her making." - Shivers

(For The Halloween Encyclopedia) "...Morton's research extends to Wiccan lore, Celtic observances, and Christian mythology...she writes enthusiastically about folk customs and is sensitive to the controversies surrounding horror literature, witchcraft, and demonism. Without undue pedantry, she explains the house-to-house souling pilgrimage, the incorporation of cabbages in Scottish holidays, the source of the boogeyman in bogs, and the lengthy training of Druid priests...this generously illustrated and indexed overview is a worthy addition to public and school libraries as well as the reference shelves of journalists and leaders of community events." - Booklist Reference Books Bulletin

(For The Cinema of Tsui Hark) "...a labor of love...provides a thorough look...Morton writes with great passion, providing a worthy analysis of the director's filmography that accurately relays the sense-heightening thrills of Tsui's best work...succeeds in offering a fine profile of a remarkable talent." - Video Watchdog

(For my full-length play Trashers) "[A RECOMMENDED Pick] Writer-director Lisa Morton’s ambitious, sci-fi comedy has a decidedly Ed Wood feel. Set in the mid-21st century, it tells of an America beset by a complete breakdown in society, and is mostly played for laughs... [Troy] Harris plays morally bankrupt Jack with great panache... hilarious portrayals include those by J. Anthony McCarthy as the android security chief and Brooke Heys as a pleasure-serving female android. Sidney Wickersham also deserves praise for his terrific set design of a trashed inner city." LA Weekly

(For my collection of one-act plays Spirits of the Season) "...it's good to see small, disadvantaged theater cop some real attitude... isn't some dumb ghoul show, but a collection of pieces riddled with disturbing thoughts. 'Too Young To' clearly establishes the evening's 'Twilight Zone' pedigree... shifting in a flash from light comedy to dread, Morton manages to avoid cheap exploitation traps and opts for some real existential resonance... Morton directs her own 'Silver Nitrate Blues', which blends two big items in the American cultural landscape - angels and AIDS - without cliches, melodrama or triteness... Grand Guignol takes center stage in the closer, 'Howlin' Monck and the Death of Music'... like the first piece, what could have been stupid horror tricks turns into a real drama with this committed cast." Los Angeles Times

(For my short play "Sane Reaction") "...'Sane Reaction' contains moments of incredibly uncomfortable tension as a torturer-murderer (John Benjamin Martin) menaces his prey (Marybeth DeLucia). Surprising plot twists by Morton (who also directed with precision) relieve the tension and make the play work as both pitch-black comedy and frightening drama." LA Weekly

The novella The Lucid Dreaming will be published by Bad Moon Books; and the short novel The Castle of Los Angeles has been bought by Gray Friar Press for publication in fall of 2009.

"Tested" won the 2006 Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction.

A Hallowe'en Anthology won the 2008 Bram Stoker Award for Nonfiction; it was also nominated for the Black Quill Award for Nonfiction.

Eight of my short stories have received Honorable Mentions in the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror volumes.

My work has appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award, the International Horror Guild Award, and the World Fantasy Award.

Meet the Hollowheads was selected as one of twelve films to participate in the 1989 Avoriaz Film Festival, and was the Grand Prix winner at the 1989 London Odeon Film Festival.

I won the President's Richard Laymon Award (from the Horror Writers Association) in both 2005 and 2006.

Netherworld

Historical Dark Fantasy Novel | First (Stand-alone) Book in a Proposed Series | Proposal and Sample Chapters or Complete Manuscript Available Upon Request

In 1879, Lady Diana Furnaval discovers that her late husband William was heir to an astonishing legacy: His family are the ancestral gatekeepers of 81 mystical portals scattered around the globe, all of which lead to the Netherworld, a place of demonic forces and mythological creatures. When Diana receives messages indicating that William may be alive somewhere in the Netherworld, she and her sidekick, a handsome young Chinese man named Yi-kin, set off on a journey that will eventually take them through 19th-century Europe, India, China, America, Ireland...and finally into the heart of the Netherworld itself, where they must face a monstrous general who plans to lead an attack of occult forces on our world, unless Diana and Yi-kin can stop him.

Malediction

Contemporary Horror Novel | Proposal and Sample Chapters or Complete Manuscript Available Upon Request

1863: Los Angeles is cursed by Petra Feliz when she is defrauded out of the land she was set to inherit. 2009: May Blanco, psychically gifted but sociopathic, arrives in Los Angeles after escaping a lifetime of imprisonment in the Arizona desert. May soon calls up the spirit of Petra, and together they form an unholy alliance of vengeful women bent on destruction. Only two people stand against them: Sam West, a once-esteemed professor of folklore now recovering from a breakdown, and Gwen Michaelson, a teacher who possesses an astonishing talent for healing. Los Angeles becomes a battleground as the forces of good and evil battle for possession in the climax.