Lisa Dern

Lisa Dern was a children’s lifestyle expert, children’s book author and a television screenwriter.

With her daughter, Chelsea Dern, she co-produced and co-hosted the internet radio program  “Chillin' with Chelsea and Lisa: Mother Daughter Duo Tell it Like it Is.”

Dern was also a former staff writer for the Fox comedy-drama series Roc, starring Charles S. Dutton as the title character. Produced by HBO, the series followed Roc Emerson, a Baltimore garbage collector, as he attempted to balance the pressures of his work and home life. The show ran for three seasons, from 1991 to 1994, and was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1993 in the category of Outstanding Technical Direction/Camera/Video for a Series.

Dern was credited with writing two episodes for the series, 1992’s “The Car Accident from Heaven” which saw the younger brother of Roc’s character get into a car accident with a rich man, and then come into some money as a result, and 1993’s “Crazy George in Love,” which saw Roc’s quirky neighbor falling in love with the Emersons' house guest.

She also produced and directed large-scale children’s theater productions in Los Angeles for eight years. In 2004, she published her first children’s book, Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow, about a little girl who tries to give her bald father a new hairdo; and she published her second children’s book in 2007, Dr. Duncan Dog on Duty!, about a family’s therapy dog that visits children in the hospital.

Dern died January 4, 2016.