Lisick, Beth 1968–

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Lisick, Beth 1968–

PERSONAL: Born 1968; married; children: Gus.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Regan Books, 10 E. 53rd St., 7th Fl., New York, NY 10022. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Poet, fiction writer, and musician. Columnist for SFGate.com; member of comedy troupe White Noise Radio Theater.

AWARDS, HONORS: Firecracker Award for fiction, 2002, for This Too Can Be Yours; Best of the Fest award, NewFest Film Festival, for Diving for Pearls.

WRITINGS:

Monkey Girl: Swingin' Tales (poetry), Manic D Press (San Francisco, CA), 1997.

This Too Can Be Yours (short stories), Manic D Press (San Francisco, CA), 2001.

Everybody into the Pool: True Tales (autobiography), Regan Books (New York, NY), 2005.

OTHER

Also author of screenplays Diving for Pearls, Compulsory Breathing, Fumbling towards Rock, and Rusty Citation. Author of column, "Buzz Town," for SFGate.com.

SIDELIGHTS: Beth Lisick grew up in a stable, middle-class family in Saratoga, New York, but broke out of that well-ordered world to make a name for herself as an avant-garde performer in the underground arts, working with music, theater, literature, spoken word, and film. In addition, she writes a gossip column about the San Francisco art scene for SFGate.com, the online version of the San Francisco Chronicle. Lisick got her start reading at open-mic poetry readings, through which she eventually attracted the attention of Jennifer Joseph, the publisher in charge of Manic D Press, and also the host of a poetry-reading series at the Paradise Lounge. Lisick read at the lounge regularly for some time, and then Joseph asked her to compile some of her work into manuscript form. The result was the poetry collection Monkey Girl: Swingin' Tales.

Lisick's next book, This Too Can Be Yours, is a collection of short stories. In her third, Everybody into the Pool: True Tales, Lisick recalls her varied life experiences, from attending society luncheons and being crowned homecoming princess in Saratoga, New York, to taking a job dressing as a banana, living in an apartment that had been sprayed by leaking sewage, and trying to unlock the latent lesbianism she felt she should have while touring with a lesbian band. Commenting on the book to Becca Costello in the Sacramento News and Review, she said: "I was this upper-middle-class teen. I was a cheerleader and a homecoming princess, and I just turned into this weird-ball artist person who has lived a different life than I was raised to live. The essays go from me growing up to me being a mom myself and driving a station wagon with a car seat in the back. The book is also about what I see as the death of alternative culture."

Discussing Everybody into the Pool with Todd Inoue for MetroActive.com, Lisick mused, "I didn't write it for any other reason than to write funny stories." Jennifer Reese, in Entertainment Weekly, believed Lisick achieves this goal, calling the sketches in the book "fizzy and delightful." The author's fondness for contrasting her mainstream upbringing with her colorful later life was noted by Audrey Snowden in Library Journal. Snowden wrote that while there are many loose ends and some abrupt transitions in Everybody into the Pool, the stories "most definitely entertain." The author's "sharp observations and self-deprecation" are evident in this collection, and they prove her to be "an accomplished storyteller," according to a Kirkus Reviews contributor. Book Slut online reviewer Laura Lee Mattingly credited Lisick with taking on "topics such as adolescence, sexuality, race, and socioeconomic class with ease, wit, and a sparkling sense of humor," but added that the author can also be "clever and poignant," as she is in the book's final piece, concerning her new son and the experience of motherhood.