Hmm, this is the difficult part. What to say about myself as an author. First of all, it would probably be best to confess right up front that Lissa Knowles is a pseudonym. When it came time to actually put my real name down as the author of a cozy mystery, I had second, third and fourth thoughts. Book selling today is an art and creating a cozy mystery series with a memorable author name can be important.

Lissa Knowles – Author

My pen name of ‘Lissa Knowles’ comes from a combination of the first name of one of my maternal aunts’ (Elissa) and the maiden name of my maternal grandmother. Both names are from good solid British stock — something that is important if you’re trying to emulate — if only in a small way — the queen of cozy mysteries, Agatha Christie. Put together they just sounded nicer to me than my real name. So Lissa Knowles was born.

The ‘Real’ Me

Simply put, I am a grandmother, like my heroine of the Gramma’s Off Her Rocker series. Additionally, my husband and four adult sons will tell you that most days I am completely ‘off my rocker’. To my sons I simply say, “Having a weird Mom builds character.” As for my husband — we celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary in the midst of the COVID19 pandemic, and I can safely say that living with me has definitely given him character.

We currently live on the northern tip of Vancouver Island, part of the wild (and wet) west coast of Canada, close to where the pavement ends and adventure begins. I enjoy hiking and photography in tandem with reading, writing and editing cozy mysteries.

Rock On!