Hi, I’m Dr. Lisa-Marie Cabrelli
PhD Creative Writing • 7 Published Novels • Former 7-Figure Entrepreneur
For years, I thought every adventure story was about a lone hero slaying dragons.
In my twenties and thirties, I absorbed the message that to succeed as a woman, you had to fight like a man, compete, isolate, and push others out of the way. The dragons were external. The path was linear. The rewards were limited and hard-won.
But midlife taught me something different.
Because midlife isn’t a crisis.
It’s a second coming-of-age.
It turns out, the dragons we face now aren’t always on the outside. They’re internal: self-doubt, shrinking dreams, inherited roles we never wanted but couldn’t shake. And the journey? It’s not about conquering or reinventing. It’s about reclaiming, and curating.
For years, I thought transformation required frameworks, systems, and step-by-step processes. I built courses, created methodologies, and taught women how to design their extraordinary lives using the secrets of story structure.
But I’ve discovered that in the age of AI, the most meaningful transformations don't happen through courses. They happen through conversation, presence, and experiences that can't be automated.
That realization changed everything.
If you’re ready to stop drifting and start designing —
I’ll hand you the map.
But you get to write the next chapter.
What I Do Now.
I curate irreplaceable experiences for accomplished women navigating their second coming of age.
I host monthly intellectual salons where brilliant minds think out loud together. No slides, no frameworks, just the kind of conversation that changes how you see your own life.
I lead small retreats (3 women max) in extraordinary places. Sicily. The Bahamas. Scotland. Where deep work happens because you're fully present, beautifully hosted, and surrounded by people who get it.
I create physical questbooks you print and write in by hand. Story-based thinking instruments for women who process on paper, not screens.
I write fiction exploring what it means to stay human when the world wants you automated. Seven novels so far, with more coming.
In a world going digital, I'm betting on the physical. The present. The irreplaceable.
My Philosophy
Don't optimize to be efficient. Optimize to be irreplaceable.
The world is automating everything it can. Which means the things that can't be automated become more valuable, not less.
Editorial judgment that selects one essay over another
Spontaneous insights that emerge in live conversation
Physical books that sit on your desk, not in the cloud
Transformation that happens when you're actually present with other humans
The taste that curates experience, not just information
I'm strategically human-first, with AI as a tool when useful. I teach people to be AI-savvy without becoming AI-dependent.
Why You Might Trust Me.
Because I've actually done this before. Multiple times. In completely different domains.
The bullet-point version:
Spent 8 years training as an actor, performing professionally, working as a voice-over artist.
Spent a career in corporate America as a business systems analyst. Designed, developed & launched a global CRM system for an international telecom.
Left corporate in 2006 and started a location-independent eCommerce company with $500 and a book on building a Yahoo Store
Started Laptop Life Coaching alongside my business to help women entrepreneurs. I took my first client from earning $28K/year as a teacher to earning $18K/month within six months.
Became a digital nomad in 2008 - I now spread my time between our homes in The Bahamas, Italy, Scotland, and the US (plus travel in between)
Sold the eCommerce company for 7-figures in 2015 and "retired."
Ran high-end business consulting company—process re-engineering for major companies, digital marketing campaign that helped win a $350M cellular license bid
Followed my dream of writing novels and wrote and published four romantic comedy beach reads
Earned my M.Litt in Crime Fiction (with Distinction), won the Val McDermid Award for Best Dissertation
Developed a curriculum for “How to Outline Your Novel” from scratch and taught University undergraduates at The University of Dundee
Created and sold a course on academic note-taking that earned five figures in under a year
Earned my Ph.D. in Creative Writing
Sold my thesis novel (The Descent) to Yonder
Created a Substack newsletter for midlife women called Call for Heroines.
The Heroine's Journey Connection.
During my PhD, I immersed myself in Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey and Kim Hudson's Virgin's Promise. These are two powerful frameworks for how transformation actually works in story structure.
That research still informs everything I create. The questbooks use story structure as their organizing principle. The salon themes map to journey stages. The retreats are designed around the narrative arc of transformation.
Midlife Isn't a Crisis. It's a Second Coming of Age.
You've spent decades figuring out how to be what the world wanted. Now it's time to figure out what you want.
Not through another course. Not through a perfect 12-step system.
Through conversations that make you think differently. Experiences that require actual presence. Physical books you write in by hand. Stories that remind you what it means to be irreplaceable.
That's what I curate. That's what happens here.
If you're ready to stop optimizing yourself into efficiency and start curating yourself into irreplaceability, then, welcome…
You've found your people.