Look and Listen

Biography

Lisa A. Shiel researches and writes about everything strange, from Bigfoot and UFOs to alternative history. She has been interviewed for big-city newspapers, national magazines, drive-time talk radio shows, and TV news. Lisa has a master’s degree in library science and was previously the chief investigator for Michigan’s chapter of the Mutual UFO Network as well as past president of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula Publishers and Authors Association (UPPAA). As a fiction writer, Lisa developed the Human Origins Series—which includes the novels The Hunt for Bigfoot and Lord of the Dead. Lisa’s other nonfiction books are Backyard Bigfoot: The True Story of Stick Signs, UFOs & the Sasquatch (a finalist in ForeWord Magazine’s 2006 Book of the Year Awards) and Strange Michigan. Her latest book, The Evolution Conspiracy, Vol. 1, marks the initial release in a planned three-book series. She is currently at work on her sixth book, Forgotten Tales of the Upper Peninsula [Michigan], to be published summer 2010 by the History Press.

Inspiration

I began writing as a hobby, out of love for language and storytelling. My personal experiences with the paranormal led me to write about Bigfoot, UFOs, and other strange phenomena in fictional contexts. When I started researching Bigfoot, I realized virtually all the books on the subject dealt with the same topics--the same sets of sightings, the same theories, the same people. I decided to write a book of my own, concentrating on my personal experiences and theories, because no one else had written about the things I'd experienced.