About the instructor Lisa Lieberman Doctor:

Lisa Lieberman Doctor has been working with screenwriters, novelists and memoirists since 1977. Her first Industry position was story editor for Sylvester Stallone shortly after the release of Rocky, which led to her next position, Creative Executive at Universal Pictures, where she assisted in overseeing the development and production of feature films. During her tenure at her next job—Vice President at Kings Road Productions at Warner Brothers—she was profiled in the Los Angeles Times Sunday Calendar cover story as one of six enterprising young Hollywood executives. She was the only woman profiled in the article. Subsequent positions include Vice President posts at Nelvana Entertainment and ITC Entertainment, which led to her position of Head of Production and Development at Jerry Weintraub Entertainment at Warner Brothers. Her last executive job was Vice President of Robin Williams’ company, Blue Wolf Productions at Tristar Pictures, where she oversaw production of Mrs. Doubtfire.

In 1995 she switched gears to become a staff writer on ABC’s General Hospital and its spin-off, Port Charles, and was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award and Writers Guild Award for her work as part of the General Hospital team.

After several years writing daytime drama, she refined her focus to writing fiction and instructing other writers, and has been a writing instructor since 2001. She currently leads weekly writing workshops in Los Angeles, and has been teaching at the UCLA Extension Writers Program since 2009. She has taught at the non-profit organization, Television Writers Fund for the Future; the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California; Cal State University Northridge Adult Learning; The University of The Balearic Islands in Mallorca, Spain; The Official Language Schools of Mallorca and Menorca; The Ghost Ranch in Santa Fe; Vaughan Town Programs in Madrid; Nature/Nurture in New Delhi, India; Rancho La Puerta in Tecate, Mexico; in addition to independently organized writing workshops in Milan, Barcelona, and Vilafranca del Penedes, Spain. She has been a guest lecturer at The University of Toledo, Ohio, and a frequent presenter at Story Expo L.A.

Her novel, The Deflowering of Rhona Lipshitz, was optioned as a motion picture by producer Raffaella De Laurentiis. Her recent book, Accidental Poetry: Improve Your English Through Creative Writing, which debuted as an Amazon Best Seller, is often used as a textbook for new speakers of English as well as a tool for writers who are developing their characters.

She served as a key textual expert witness in motion picture copyright infringement law at Twentieth Century Fox from 2004-2006.

Lisa Doctor lives in Malibu, California with her husband, clinical psychologist and author Ron Doctor.