Lissa Oliver is a freelance horseracing journalist and novelist, with short stories included in several anthologies. Her training was originally in stud management, she then managed betting offices for many years before embarking on a full-time writing career. First published in The Brownie magazine at the age of 7 (skilfully rhyming ‘jump’ and ‘bump’ in the poem ‘The Kangaroo’…) her work has been appearing in print more or less ever since!
Lissa is currently an author member on the Board of Directors of the Irish Copyright Licensing Agency; is an Executive Officer of the Irish Writers’ Union; and is a member of the UK’s Horserace Writers And Photographers’ Association; as well as being a member of the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association. She is also a registered tutor with FAS and the VEC and has facilitated writing courses for a number of years.
She currently writes features and profiles for THE IRISH FIELD; EUROPEAN TRAINER magazine; RACETRACK magazine and the EBN (European Bloodstock News). She was among those nominated for the prestigious Clive Graham Award for the 2008 Derby Awards.
Her novel NERO – THE LAST CAESAR was nominated for the James Tait Black prize for historical fiction, the Orange Prize for fiction and the BBC Historical Fiction awards. Written as fiction it is an entirely factual and historically accurate account of the life of the first century Roman emperor, Nero, a man who most certainly did not fiddle while Rome burned! Bearing no resemblance to the Peter Ustinov character many might recall, the real Nero became emperor at sixteen, fought tirelessly for the rights of the common man and competed victoriously at the ancient Greek Olympiad, shortly before his untimely death at the age of thirty. He was also an accomplished horseman and set in place a retirement scheme for ex-racehorses!
GALA DAY is a thriller in the Dick Francis mould, set in the heart of Newmarket’s horseracing world. Jockey Pete Allen is desperate to return to the heady heights of his successful apprentice days, but his decidedly dodgy reputation threatens to destroy his career just when success beckons once more.
All of the examples included here have been previously published and are not free from copyright or available for reproduction.
NERO - THE LAST CAESAR is a factual but fictionalised biography of the Roman emperor Nero. Historically accurate and using his own words where ever possible, together with those of his friends and family, it paints the portrait of the young emperor as he really was - a humanitarian and social reformer - not as the mad despot wrongly portrayed in films.
GALA DAY is an explosive racing thriller in which a British flat jockey struggles to rescue his career and escape the corruption that threatens to pull him under.