Lisa D. Misraje
Lisa D. Misraje is a best-selling author, producer and nonprofit Director of Development. After making the front-page of the Los Angeles Times, Saving Levi gained film interest. In 2018 she even signed a short one-year film option on her book. In addition to her film interest, Lisa is currently working on a book sequel, the continuing story of her family’s experiences with the ability of loving determination and faith to create hope where there was none. Saving Levi recently went into its fifth printing and has been translated into three languages.
Born in Los Angeles to a Sephardic Jewish father and a Scandinavian Lutheran mother, Lisa grew up trying to balance life between her mother’s world in West Los Angeles and her father’s world in the Hollywood Hills.
In 2001, Lisa began her work in China. Originally intending to take a three-month vision tour, she wound up spending the next nine years of her life in Mainland China. During her time in China she founded two successful nonprofit organizations. She specializes in strategic development, community engagement and nonprofit management. She has now worked for more than two decades researching orphan prevention and deinstitutionalization. Lisa refers to her time in China as her “first dream life.”
In between her dedication to her children and her work, Lisa found the time to write her book, Saving Levi, which tells the miraculous story of her adopted son Levi and how a girl from Los Angeles wound up falling in love with China. In 2010 she returned to America with her six children.
Lisa knows a thing or two about the road less traveled. At 47 Lisa went back to school as a first-generation, non-traditional student, landing at the University of Southern California on a full ride. In 2019 Lisa graduated from USC earning a Bachelor of Arts in NGO and Social Change and a Master of Public Administration. She was 54. Lisa refers to her time at USC as her “second dream life.” Fight On!
When she graduated USC, her exceptional accomplishments landed her on the front page of 11 newspapers, including the Los Angeles Daily News, Orange County Register, and the Pasadena Star News.
A grandmother to Amir and mother of six grown children, Lisa currently lives in sunny California with her family and Old English Sheepdog named Bogie (Humphrey Bogart).