Lisa J. Parker is a native Virginian raised in Fauquier County in the Shenandoah Valley in a large extended Appalachian family. She comes from loggers, miners, and musicians, and grew up surrounded by the music and stories of those southwest Virginia hills her family called home for generations. Parker is a poet, musician, and photographer. Her first book, This Gone Place, reissued in 2022 , won the 2010 Weatherford Award, and her work is widely published in literary journals and anthologies. Her second poetry collection, The Parting Glass, won the 2021 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize and was published in 2022. Her photography has been on exhibit in NYC and published in several arts journals and anthologies. She has worked in the Department of Defense for twenty years and was a first responder for fifteen years. She continues to work as a volunteer disaster relief responder with Team Rubicon.