Lissa Warren has been a literary publicist for more than twenty-five years. She began her career at the legendary Boston publishing house David R. Godine, and went on to work at Houghton Mifflin, Perseus Publishing, and Da Capo Press, where she served as Vice President, Senior Director of Publicity and Acquiring Editor for two decades, seeing it through its acquisition by one of the “Big 5” houses, the Hachette Book Group, where she worked until 2019 when she launched her own company, Lissa Warren PR, which specializes in publicity for books and authors.

While working in-house…

Authors Warren publicized while working in-house include musicians Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath, Duff McKagan of Guns N’ Roses, Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, John Popper of Blues Traveler, Scott Ian of Anthrax, Corey Taylor of Slipknot, Randy Blythe of Lamb of God, Rex Brown of Pantera, K.K. Downing of Judas Priest, Al Jourgensen of Ministry, Wayne Kramer of the MC5, John Doe of X, Bill Medley of The Righteous Brothers, and Kennedy Center honoree Buddy Guy; actors and comedians Alan Arkin, Jimmy O. Yang, Jenny McCarthy, and Robert Schimmel; historians Thomas Fleming and Harlow Giles Unger; former United States Ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith; and VIPs in the health and wellness field, like breast cancer expert Dr. Susan Love, “America’s Pediatrician” Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, and vegan cookbook author Isa Chandra Moskowitz—as well as books by such organizations as Children’s Hospital Boston, St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, and AARP.  She also handled the campaign for the 25th anniversary edition of Buzz Bissinger’s modern-day classic, Friday Night Lights.

In addition to running their publicity department…

During her time at Da Capo Press Warren acquired and edited such books as Jaed Coffin’s A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants, Doug Stewart’s The Boy Who Would Be Shakespeare, David Wolman’s The End of Money, and Douglas Whynott’s The Sugar Season, which the Boston Globe named one of the Best Books of 2014. She planned and executed their publicity campaigns as well.

An author herself…

Warren is the author of The Savvy Author’s Guide to Book Publicity: A Comprehensive Resource—From Building the Buzz to Pitching the Press (Carroll & Graf, 2004) and the memoir The Good Luck Cat: How a Cat Saved a Family, and a Family Saved a Cat (Lyons Press, 2014). Her poetry has appeared in such publications as Quarterly West, Black Warrior Review, Oxford Magazine, and Verse, and she served as a Poetry Editor for the literary magazine Post Road. She holds a B.S. in English Education from Miami University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Bennington College.

A professor of publishing…

Since 2003, Warren has been an Adjunct Professor at Emerson College, teaching graduate and undergraduate courses as part of their Writing, Literature, and Publishing program and creating their Book Publicity course. In 2007, she became one of the first faculty members in Boston University’s publishing certificate program. She previously served on the advisory boards of Bookbuilders of Boston and Southern New Hampshire University’s M.F.A. Creative Writing program, and currently serves on the advisory board of Beacon Press. She has been a judge for the Maine Literary Awards as well as the New England Book Show, has blogged about book publishing for the Huffington Post, and discussed books weekly on Santa Cruz’s KSCO Radio.

A prolific public speaker…

Warren has spoken about book publishing for Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s School for the Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, New York University, Lesley University, the American Association of University Presses, the American Comparative Literature Association, Biographers International Organization, Publishers Marketing Association, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Virginia Festival of the Book, the Adirondack Writer’s Conference, the Cape Cod Writers Conference, the Concord Festival of Books, the Romance Writers Association of New England, International Thriller Writers, Publishers Association of the South, Bookbuilders of Boston, ForeWord magazine, the New Hampshire Writers’ Project, and Grub Street, among others.