Lishka DeVoss

In the 1980's, Lishka DeVoss worked in some of the top restaurants in NYC. While absorbing all the information she could to earn better tips, she said to herself, "Hey, somebody should pay me for all this stuff I'm learning." So she wrote a detailed outline and St. Martin's Press paid her to write the book. She really likes facts, methods and local lingo.

Since 1995, Lishka DeVoss has been doing enrichment programs and after-school programs that end up as some sort of "show" for radio, video or theater. Her scripts are now used internationally by teachers in need of material for in-school and after-school programs, home-schoolers, and publishers of educational materials (e.g. Oxford University Press). After careful research, she incorporates numerous facts while always maintaining a certain amount of fresh quirkiness.

Beyond script writing, she is also the author of a continuing and extensive Hawaiian and surfer slang dictionary, a massive-aiming-to-be-monumental online bovine encyclopedia called My Daily Cow (that is also an app for iPhone) and The Cow Wall - A Cattle Breed Picture Reference (currently online, aiming to be in print too).

Why cows? Because the kids said, "Let's have cows in our show." So she invented Men In Milk - Dairy Defenders and, well, they kept asking her for more cows. She blames the kids.

Most of her work is devoted to creating educational resources for Kranky Kids (www.krankykids.com). Besides directing live shows and making fun videos with students, she has also had multiple kids radio shows at KZSU Stanford and WUNH University of New Hampshire.