Lisa T. Bergren is the author of over thirty books, so you may wonder how it is that she needs an introduction. As it happens, Lisa is somewhat of an eclectic writer—she has books in a variety of genres: non-fiction, children’s picture books, romance, historical, suspense, YA.

I first became aware of Lisa’s work when the CSFF Blog Tour featured the first title, Begotten, in her supernatural suspense series, The Gifted, back in April 2008. The epic trilogy is set in medieval times.

More recently, however, Lisa has written two time-travel young adult series, The River of Time: Waterfall, Cascade, Torrent, Bourne & Tributary, Deluge; and River of Time California, Three Wishes and the newly released, Four Winds. Rather than falling into the science fiction category, however, these stories relate more nearly to fantasy because they take the protagonists back in time to medieval settings.

In that respect, then, Lisa is fairly new to speculative fiction and thus my thought that an introduction would be appropriate.

Lisa was born in Kalispell, Montana, on March 28 and raised in Southern California (there must be a story behind that transition!) Growing up she wanted to be “A nurse. An astronaut. Indiana Jones. A teacher. A journalist. One of the Three Musketeers.” Writing, apparently, has made it possible for her to become any of these through her characters.

After high school she went on to get a degree in English literature from the University of California at Irvine. Post graduation she became, among other things, a “ski bum” in Park City, Utah, but it was there she renewed her faith in Jesus Christ. Now she describes herself as “a disciple of Christ, desiring to walk close enough to him to be covered in the dust from his sandals.”

Currently she lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with her husband Tim and their three children, Olivia, Emma, and Jack.

Her daughters were the big motivation for her decision to write a YA series. For, oh so long, these girls were reluctant readers—and then the Twilight books came out. The oldest in particular took to them, full force. Lisa stayed involved, discussing the books with her daughter as she read them and taking her to the first movie. It was there, seeing all those young girls longing for suspense and romance, that Lisa first thought of writing for that audience.

Lisa is one of the few writers I know who starts with setting. She does her best research by traveling to the location of her story, and there she comes up with interesting characters and plot ideas. Her travels have taken her to Egypt, England, France, Italy. She’s gone scuba diving in the Red Sea, ridden a camel for a photo op at the Great Pyramids, and taken a ride on a gondola in Venice.

In addition to writing and travel, Lisa is a “mompreneur,” caring for her home and family, a business consultant, a freelance editor, and an occasional speaker. Formerly she worked as a publishing executive.

You can connect with Lisa (and she enjoys getting to know readers) at her web site, Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.

This post is an updated version of one that first appeared at A Christian Worldview Of Fiction.