Lisa Braxton

I've been working in media for over 30 years in various forms. I began my career in radio news reporting and announcing at a small station in my hometown of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Then I went into newspaper reporting for a daily newspaper in Richmond, Virginia. After that, I transitioned into television news, working at small market stations in the Midwest and the Northeast. Being a television news reporter was very hard, and being able to turn information around very quickly and go on air with it in a composed manner and present the public with information that they need - being able to do that kind of work has been the toughest, and I would say the work I'm most proud of. After my television career, I transitioned into nonprofit work, which is what I do now. I've been with Massachusetts Housing Partnership, a quasi-state affordable housing organization, since 2021. My typical day involves going to meetings of different departments within MHP and determining what we would like to publicize through press releases, long-form stories on our website, pursuing media interviews, working on our annual report, and crafting social media. More recently, I've become a novelist and memoirist. I've been writing essays and short stories for about 20 years. My novel, The Talking Drum, came out in 2020, and my memoir, Dancing Between the Raindrops: A Daughter's Reflections on Love and Loss, came out in 2023. It's a grief memoir. I also teach memoir writing at a writing center, including classes on writing your legacy letter and 5-minute memoir. I recently did a TED talk about preserving our family's stories because so many people allow their older family members to pass away and that history is lost. My great-grandfather was a slave, and I have a few details about him, but not many, because people didn't write these things down. I'm starting a campaign to get people to write their family stories and talk to their relatives, to preserve their stories.