BIO & EXPERIENCE

LISA K. MURTHA

AWARD-WINNING WRITING FOR PRINT & VISUAL MEDIA

A Cleveland, Ohio native, I earned a Bachelor's Degree in English / Creative Writing from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.  After a short stint as a location scout for Candid Camera, I pursued a decade-long career in television production, with highlights including: producing Cincinnati's first-ever early-morning newscast, serving as script supervisor on numerous local and national television commercials, producing home and garden segments for the Do-It-Yourself Network and eventually creating, writing and producing a regional Emmy-nominated documentary film about two mid-century-modern architects for public television called A Hillside Firm. While working in production, I began building my freelance writing portfolio as well, penning everything from cover stories in Cincinnati Magazine to a ghost-written column in the Cincinnati Enquirer and educational resources and website content for PBS.

Today I live in southwest Ohio and continue my work, mainly in print journalism, for clients like America Magazine,Chicago Magazine and the Cincinnati Business Courier. I am also a Contributing Editor for Cincinnati Magazine, where my interview subjects have ranged from world-famous architects to heroin addicts, a Pulitzer-prize-winning holocaust survivor, skate rats, an orchestra conductor, victims of human trafficking, a horror writer, and a roller-derby queen. I write on a highly diverse range of people and topics, and enjoy telling stories that introduce readers to people, places and ideas they might not otherwise know.

In 2020, I won both the Cleveland Press Club's General Magazine Features award and the Cincinnati Society of Professional Journalist's Best Magazine Story award for my feature on a Covington, Kentucky family that triumphed after a vicious, nationwide social media-orchestrated attack following the January 2019 Nicholas Sandmann / CovCath / March for Life incident in Washington, D.C.  To date, I am the only feature writer in the world who was granted access to any of the families involved in that event. 

In 2018, I was named a Finalist in the Cincinnati Society of Professional Journalists Best Magazine Story category for my feature on international disaster relief powerhouse Mattthew 25: Ministries. In 2017, I won the Cleveland Press Club's General Magazine Features award and was named finalist in the Cincinnati Society of Professional Journalists Best Magazine Story and Best Community Issues Story categories for THE FIGHT OF THEIR LIVES, my feature following women struggling to start over after prostitution, sex trafficking and heroin abuse .
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