PRAISE for FLUID:
“With Fluid, Teasley returns to short fiction in a smart, sexy, playful collection with sprinklings of the supernatural befitting the characters that grace her stories, variously artists, sensitives and mystics and more than a few lovers.”
—Lauren Kinney, Gulf Coast Journal
“Myriad lives and the various concerns, hopes, desires, struggles, fears, beginnings, and endings that fill them are celebrated in Lisa Teasley’s profound collection.”
“These captivating works of short fiction linger and provoke.”
—Alta Journal
“…the richness of the book’s content glimmers with unique and fascinating stories that explore the fabric of life in a way that can only be done by such an extolled writer as Lisa Teasley.”
—Jordannah Elizabeth, Amsterdam News
“Every one of the stories in this knock-out collection by Lisa Teasley hides within it a hundred other stories of lives lived in the loop of our ever-mindboggling new century. Beautiful, ominous, erotic, full of a hushed surreal poetry that rolls in like waves of the sea, one after another.”
—Steve Erickson, author of Shadowbahn and Zeroville
“Lisa Teasley has an uncanny knack for writing about human beings in all our weirdly diverse glory. Strange, sensual, and smart, the stories in this collection honor the unpredictability of love, life, and death.”
—Myriam Gurba, author of Mean and Creep
PRAISE for HEAT SIGNATURE:
“Poignant, affecting and true.”
—Carmela Ciuraru, Los Angeles Times
“[Lisa Teasley’s] mastery of language and character makes Heat Signature rise above…into the realm of literature…[it] brims with juicy themes—race, violence, the weight of the past.”
—Miriam Wolf, San Francisco Chronicle
“Sexy…fiercely intelligent.”
—Elle magazine
“This ambitious, richly imagined novel tackles loss, recovery, and friendship… [Teasley] convincingly depicts [Sam’s] agonizing emotional struggles and dramatically shifting moods. As she did in her first novel, Dive, Teasley also skillfully intertwines both romantic and violent plot elements… an affecting novel. Recommended for most libraries.”
—Patrick Sullivan, Library Journal
“With its keen ability to convey the way geography and interior life meld together in memory, Teasley’s writing easily transcends genre.”
—Sara Cardace, Washington Post
“Teasley transcends the mystery and thriller genres with her moody second novel populated by unusual but recognizable people living on the left coast of America…her novel [has] a dark, effective frame.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Teasley poetically travels through the chambers of Sam’s agonizing self-reflection when he takes a journey across the Left Coast’s fluctuating landscape…Heat Signature is a contemporary odyssey full of intriguing and quirky personalities…Teasley’s vivid language and multi-tiered storytelling capture a tortured man’s exploration of justice—even if his sense of retribution is limited.”
—Cherie Dennis, Time Out New York
“The anomie, moral instability of Teasley’s characters is acutely conjured…and their stutter-step eloquence takes us along on a ride through the complex psychological debris of the past to an emotionally candid assaying of love and loss, one that suggests that, even now, beauty might lie ahead.”
—Kirk Robertson, Reno News and Review
“Lisa Teasley is one of those rare authors of modern fiction who can tell stories, simply, letting her words stand in for all the intangibles that defy exegesis…It’s a broad canvas, and Teasley fills it with good things. The book’s gorgeous.”
—Brandon K. Thorp, NewTimes Broward-Palm Beach
“Teasley’s latest title easily enchants, gripping the reader throughout this young man’s journey of release and discovery…Its depth and poignancy, along with a light touch of suspense, make this a read not to be missed.”
—Stephanie Padilla, New Mystery Reader
Heat Signature is one of the ’45 Reasons to Stay Inside’ on the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Summer Reading List, June 4, 2006.
“Teasley deftly guides [her characters’]…to an emotionally fraught climax, guilelessly delineating [their] suffering through unadorned, unapologetic candor and fervor for redemption and justice.”
—Booklist
“Hypnotic”
—Essence (A Patrik’s Pick for August issue)
Heat Signature is a New and Noteworthy book in Plenty magazine, August/September issue
Heat Signature is on Ms. magazine’s Summer Reading list, Summer issue 2006
PRAISE for DIVE:
“Teasley has a fine original voice. She gets deep inside her character’s heads but doesn’t sacrifice plot in favor of psyche. Instead she finds a balance between a compelling story, psychological insight and bold sexuality.”
—Miriam Wolf, San Francisco Chronicle
“…The superimposing of an earnestly tender love story onto an Elmore Leonard-ish tableau of killers, drifters and even a porn star— turns out to be an affecting first novel… Teasley can write with a poet’s economy.”
—Jeff Turrentine, New York Times Book Review
“An exquisitely observed tale of a love affair… But what makes the book so compelling isn’t its eroticism, its hint of noir intrigue or the way its oddball side players, including a retired porn star, so doggedly defy our preconceptions, but the lightly worn profundity of the author’s vision, the humanity of her characters and the delicate strands of fate with which she binds them together.”
—Aaron Gell, W magazine
LA Weekly Literary Edition profile on Lisa Teasley by Joy Nicholson.
“Dive is an absorbing, romantic and suspenseful story.”
—Essence magazine
“Teasley is a young and burgeoning talent.”
—Gotham magazine
Los Angeles Times Weekend Calendar interview with Lisa Teasley appeared May 20, 2004.
Interview with LAIST.COM, September 6, 2005
“It is, without a doubt, one of the best books of the year…Teasley has the breath and touch of a master poet with the rhythm and tongue of a natural storyteller.”
—Thumper, AALBC.com
“Beautiful and lyrical novel of grace…gripping…Highly recommended, this distinctive novel will resonate long after it’s over.”
—New Mystery Reader Magazine
Interview with Sacramento Bee, October 13, 2005
“The characters are well crafted…and the novel is a generally entertaining diversion that sustains its own mystery.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Lisa Teasley writes like the unchained love child of Norman Mailer and Nina Simone. Dive is a sexy, compelling ride through the deeper wilds of the human psyche. This book takes risks other authors would balk at—and leaves the reader gasping for more. An arresting, unsettling, and terrifically written debut.”
—Jerry Stahl
“There is nothing all too predictable in Teasley’s writing.”
—Anchorage Press
PRAISE for GLOW IN THE DARK:
“Comparisons to the masters abound. Teasley’s engaging collection frequently captures the gut-wrenching street smarts of Charles Bukowski, the minimalist urgency of Ernest Hemingway and Milan Kundera’s balance between heavy and light.”
—J. Mark Dudick, Anchorage Daily News
“Teasley writes in a daring and original voice. Glow in the Dark is an unusually assured first story collection, and Lisa Teasley deserves high praise for giving the American short story an honest and original shot in the arm.” View Article
—Jeff Galipeaux, San Francisco Chronicle
“Written in prose both blunt and elliptical, the dozen tales form a gritty, unflinching yet empathetic collage of lives on the precipice of contemporary America.” View Article
—Reed Johnson, Los Angeles Times
“Her characters are an exotic blend of the neurotic and the noirish—tense, hungry, dangerous folk of diverse ethnicities who crave understanding and stimulation… Without embracing cynicism or denying the risks, Teasley lights up the plunge into the abyss that can result from knowing people far too well.” View Article
—Greg Tate, Village Voice
Lisa Teasley’s appearance in Glamour Magazine’s hot, new author spread.
“Written in spare yet lively prose, Teasley’s gripping narratives take on lives of their own, as her characters succumb to their passions or battle their demons with a familiarity that’s alarmingly contemporary.”
—Karen Zuercher, SF Weekly
“Teasley’s prose…brims over with plain-spoken energy, gutsy observations and neo-beatnik flair.”
—Los Angeles Times Book Review
“This is a writer to watch.”
—St Petersburg Times
“For all of its darkness, however, in each of these stories there is a sliver of light—not a light at the end of the tunnel, but a self-made luminescence for which violence and shadows are essential.”
—Flaunt
“Teasley’s writing, caustic and clear, describes this segment of society in simple but haunting language. A glowing success.”
—Rebel Magazine
Lisa Teasley appears on the cover of the LA Weekly.
“Like ill-slept nights in the arms of a succubus, these stories— sometimes flirtations— by Lisa Teasley range from the darkly impressionistic to the drunkenly surreal— the page a canvas, on which she masterfully renders edgy contemporary mindscapes.”
—Wanda Coleman
“The stories in Glow in the Dark are daring, compelling and sexy.”
—Trey Ellis
“The characters in Lisa Teasley’s stories have a complex psycho-tropic wiring— they teeter between insanity and control, hopeless romantics bent on destruction. Each scenario entails a psychic wrestling match, often dangerous, other times perfectly measured, but always on edge.”
—Ron Athey
“Lisa Teasley writes of the world, tearing into our soft white underbelly with a sharp clear eye.”
—Joel Rose
“There is something about Lisa Teasley’s formidable storytelling that brings to mind the verbal and visual juggernauts of a Zora Neale Hurston or a Quentin Tarantino, the dark, righteous anger of the Beats, and the heavy metallic blues of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. Be it race, sex, sexual orientation, love, hate, or gross despair and confusion, it is evident that Teasley is a literary globe-trotter, crossing cultural boundaries, ripping open bags (of mythologies and stereotypes), and, like the best of our painters, sketching narratives which will circle us long after we are done eyeballing these sheets of paper.”
—Kevin Powell
“…Like a hip, urban female version of Raymond Carver, Teasley’s writing is lush yet spare, and more than a little disturbing.”
—Pleasant Gehman
“Lisa Teasley’s engaging, economical stories fade in on characters whose passions and obsessions have led them to precarious thresholds. Teasley delineates these extremities— of desire, guilt, and most of all human need— with a cool yet compassionate restraint. …she never lets us feel we have the upper hand, but draws us into the real time of her characters’ troubled lives. Her stories disturb, and stick with you.”
—David Trinidad