Hi! I’m Lisa Napoli.
I recently completed my Master’s in Biography & Memoir at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York. I loved studying the genres in which I’ve steeped myself professionally for the past 15 years.
Recent projects include editing pioneering broadcaster Connie Chung’s best-selling memoir, writing the privately published memoir of a rags-to-riches billionaire who transformed my native borough of Brooklyn, as well as that of a television impresario (that project is underway as we speak.)
Life-writing is my thing…
…whether it’s biographies like those I’ve written about Ted Turner and the merry band of pioneers who started CNN; the founding mothers of NPR; and Joan Kroc, the great under-recognized philanthropist who gave away the McDonald’s fortune.
Or my own memoir about helping to start a radio station in the Kingdom of Bhutan at the dawn of democratic rule.
I love both forms and talking about them so much that I teach workshops on triggering memory and helped co-create a podcast for BIO.
In my previous work, I was a columnist and reporter for a pioneering online section of the New York Times; a reporter and host for the public radio show Marketplace; the technology correspondent for MSNBC/MSNBC.com; and an arts reporter for KCRW.
I love interviewing people live on stage, as I did in 2024 at the Miami Book Festival with the Rock Bottom Remainders.
Let’s be in touch!
“..illuminates the terrifying, thrilling energy of NPR as start-up…a lesson in how the fringe project of one generation becomes the mainstream of the next.”
The New York Times
“Napoli’s narrative skills are outstanding.”
Chicago Tribune
“…an indelible portrait of the media mogul in all his profane, cartoonish glory.”
Wall Street Journal
“A rare gift….the chronicle of a country barreling toward change, and a woman’s search for what happiness really means at any age.”
Christian Science Monitor
“I write what is commonly called a ‘shitty first draft. I hire Lisa Napoli, an editor friend, to edit my book. She changes my past tense to past perfect tense, points out mixed metaphors and dangling participles, and asks a lot of questions with the dizzying speed and efficiency of a news pro in the midst of a breaking story.”
—Connie Chung, network news anchor
“Her book about me and the other Founding Mothers of NPR is a breath-taking sweep of the lives of four women, the history of our times as journalists, and the story of public radio’s emergence as a powerful institution. How she accomplishes all that in less than 300 pages is a small miracle. I’m honored to have been exposed to her careful scrutiny.”
—Susan Stamberg, NPR Special Correspondent
“Lisa Napoli has a unique talent for capturing the passion and the voice of her subjects and conveying their experiences and thinking with verve and accuracy. And she is an absolute joy to work with.”
—Jamison Stoltz, Editorial Director, Abrams Press
“Lisa Napoli is a delight to work with in every way, both personally and professionally! But one of her greatest accomplishments is how she’s able to evoke other characters, other voices, even other time periods, and give us a sense of who the person behind the page really is in a truly living, breathing way.”
—Jill Schwartzman, VP, Executive Editor, Dutton