Joining the Marine Corps fueled Lisa's wanderlust for travel as she lived in California and exotic Okinawa, Japan. After serving in the Marine Corps, she graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, then grabbed her backpack to explore Europe. Coming across a stroke of good luck in Paris, she unpacked long enough to live in the City of Love and began writing. When she returned to the States, Lisa bought a bookstore north of Boston and began writing about being a Woman Marine. These eventually blossomed into Parris Island: A Woman's Memoir of Marine Corps Boot Camp and the sequel, Journey of a Woman Marine: Life, Love, and Travels During and After the Marine Corps.