Lisa Marie Basile

Lisa Marie Basile

Bio

Lisa Marie Basile is the founding creative director of Luna Luna Magazine--a popular magazine focused on literature, magical living, and identity. She is the author of "Light Magic for Dark Times," a modern collection of inspired rituals and daily practices, as well as "The Magical Writing Grimoire: Use the Word as Your Wand for Magic, Manifestation & Ritual." She can be found writing about trauma recovery, writing as a healing tool, chronic illness, everyday magic, and poetry. She's written for The New York Times, Refinery 29, Self, Chakrubs, Marie Claire, Narratively, Catapult, Sabat Magazine, Healthline, Bust, Hello Giggles, Grimoire Magazine, and more. Lisa Marie has taught writing and ritual workshops at HausWitch in Salem, MA, Manhattanville College, and Pace University. She earned a Masters's degree in Writing from The New School and studied literature and psychology as an undergraduate at Pace University.

Lisa Marie Basile Articles

My personal goal was always to help writers tap into bigger social and cultural issues through their work — not to peddle exploitative shock-factor trash.

Navigating The Ethics Of Editing Personal Essays 

The fact of the matter is that content mills are dangerous and personal essays are a different beast. And there’s a vast level of discrepancy between a phone-it-in XYZ — and a Here’s What It Feels Like piece and other essays, where the language sings and the story is backed up by reportage. I’m aware of this. But there is also a middle ground.

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Do we all care deeply what others think? And is it total bullshit when someone says they don’t?

What’s Not Said: When People Either Love Or Hate You

In this column, I talk about things other people think or say, but not out loud, and certainly not in public. No one wants to say, “People either love me or hate me” because it sounds ridiculous and arrogant and icky.

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You’re a body of magic. (Photo by Ryan Moreno on Unsplash)

Gratitude Magic

Remember that your body is you, it is not separate. Treat it, yourself, with love. You’re a body of magic.

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Photo courtesy of Lisa Marie Basile

What I Learned After Publishing My First Nonfiction Book

The book was a doorway in, a doorway out, a personal threshold. Here’s what I learned, a year out, from writing it. Read...
Have the awkward conversation. Fight for your friendship if it’s worth fighting for.

My Wealthy Friend: I Love You, But You’re Hurting Me

It’s Monday, 6 a.m. and Sarah, 30, wakes up — as she does five days a week (but really, it’s seven, because the body is a fickle thing).

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Photo by Ann Danilina on Unsplash

3 Dream Magic Rituals And Practices

"In sleep, I become a garden of roses blooming in the dark." Read...
Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash

How To Use Tarot Cards For Self-Care

For the longest time, I've turned to tarot cards — usually read by someone else for me — to seek wisdom. Read...
It’s the black cloud that never, ever goes away — despite the resilience it has armored me with.

Addiction & Recovery: When Your Parents Are The Problem

No addiction or recovery story is the same. You don’t always kick the habit and you don’t always find the forgiveness which you seek. Around 60% of addicts relapse, according to the U.S. government. Others die. Others end up prison. Others lose their kids. Some make a full recovery.

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I try to talk about it. I try to ask about it. I try to make a space for these realities.

Why It’s 100% OK To Talk To Me About My Time In Foster Care

When we think of foster care or wards of the state or orphans or homelessness, we hear poor. We hear the forgotten. We hear hopeless. We hear other. Let’s face it: we hear classism, trash, bad parents, drugs. The stigma cuts through the room, through the world, through the news reports we don’t read — and through our bodies.

So let’s get this out of the way now: Imagine not coming from a relatively typical family background, not having enough money to go on school trips, and knowing the structure of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and watching your mother at the podium. Imagine going from homeless shelter to foster care, and imagine your main source of support as a teenager wasn’t your mother or father, but your social worker or your foster parent — a stranger, for all intents and purposes. Imagine keeping all of this quiet, because there’s no way high schoolers could ever understand. This was my life. Now you know.

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