Bio

 

Thank you for visiting my website! I’m glad you’re here.

My name is Liza Achilles, pronounced LIE-zuh uh-KIL-ease. This is my real name (not a pen name).

My Shakespearean sonnet sequence, Two Novembers: A Memoir of Love ’n’ Sex in Sonnets, was published by Beltway Editions on July 1, 2024. (Learn more.) Poems from this collection have appeared in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, The Headlight Review, Tofu Ink Arts Press, Brief Wilderness, The Big Windows Review, Burrow, and Exacting Clam. My nonfiction has appeared in Washington Independent Review of Books and the Silent Book Club blog, as well as independent blogs. Two Novembers was selected for DCTRENDING magazine’s Summer Booklist 2024. My blog for the discerning reader (on the Home page) has been active since 2018 and attracts thousands of readers each month. In 2016, I was a Semi-Finalist in the William Faulkner–Wisdom Creative Writing Competition for my unpublished literary/historical novel The Water-Creatures. I am currently hard at work on an autobiographical novel on the intersection between philosophy and psychology.

I have English degrees from Northwestern University (B.A.) and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (M.Ed.). My career as a high school English teacher turned into a career in writing and editing when I landed a job at a publishing house run by Pleasant Rowland, founder of American Girl. Since then, I have engaged in educational writing, proposal writing, business writing, policy writing, and technical writing, including a project for the Obama White House. I currently serve as Policy Technical Writer as a contractor to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), focusing on IT policy.

The greater Washington, DC, area is my home. Although I was born here and currently live here, much of my childhood and adulthood was spent elsewhere; I’m glad to be back. In addition to reading and writing, I enjoy running and attending events and shows in the arts, including theater, poetry, books, visual art, music, and comedy.