Lisa Clifford grew up in Sydney and graduated from Kincoppal-Rose Bay in 1979. She loved her years at KRB and was one of the last girls to ever attend Kincoppal at Potts Point as a Kindergarten student before the two schools amalgamated. Lisa moved to Italy when she was 16 years old and returned to Australia after winning a scholarship to the Australian Film, Television and Radio School.
Following a career in journalism that included reporting for 2GB, KIIS FM and Channel 10 news, Lisa became the Associate Producer of the Channel 10 Late News. Throughout her career, she continued to travel to Italy, corresponding for 2UE, the ABC’s Radio National and the Voice of America News Service. Lisa currently contributes opinion pieces, guides and lifestyle articles on Italy to The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, Gourmet Traveler and a range of other international magazines and newspapers. She is the author of Walking Sydney (Pan Macmillan 1998), The Promise – an Italian Romance (Pan Macmillan 2004), Death in the Mountains (Pan Macmillan 2008) and Naples, A Way of Love (Penguin 2013), and was awarded the Australian Illustrated Book of the Year. Lisa won the 2009 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for writing about Italians with Death in the Mountains.
In 2013, Lisa founded The Art of Writing; Tuscan based international writers retreats for emerging and established writers. With a planned permanent return to Australia imminent, Lisa is now focused on Australian writers and has recently worked with groups in Brisbane. Lisa focuses on self-confidence and self-doubt through creative writing and helping young women find their own special voices through the clarity of writing. Lisa has also developed a course called “Your Voice is the soul of you” which covers the essentials of story, plot, character and memoir which is geared towards story telling for the page or screen.
Lisa Clifford lives in Florence with her husband and two children. She is the youngest daughter of Australian etiquette icon, June Dally-Watkins.