Black Paris Profiles™: Priscilla Lalisse-Jespersen

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I am pleased to announce a new feature of the Entrée to Black Paris™ blog:
Black Paris Profiles™. These profiles will introduce you to individuals who make up Paris' African-American community today. Our stories are rich, complex, and exciting, and I am looking forward to bringing them to you!

Priscilla Lalisse-Jespersen

Photo courtesy of Prissy Mag

Today, I bring you the story of Priscilla Lalisse-Jespersen—writer and online magazine editor. Priscilla hails from Heflin, Alabama.  She moved to Paris in 1999 after having met "a charming Frenchman" while working at Sigs Publications in Manhattan.  Now she is kept very busy juggling marriage, family, and career in Paris.  She says that it’s tough at times, but that "you sort of just go with it after a while.  There’s a set rhythm here that you have to get used to.  Big cities are busy in general, but Paris has its own rhythm.  I try to make Sundays my 'family day' but now and then I do tend to sneak some work in too."

Priscilla's overriding passion in life is writing.  She says that she's been doing so since her Sunday school days when she would record the minutes in her role as secretary and read them at the end of the service!  She feeds this passion on a daily basis by publishing the free, online, expatriate magazine Prissy Mag, a platform to communicate her likes and loves (and sometimes dislikes) about Parisian living.

Prissy Mag readers are typically Anglophones who lives somewhere other than Paris (generally the U.S. or the U.K.) who dream of or are planning to move to Paris.  Priscilla says that they live vicariously through her and her writers.  Other readers include visitors who need specific information while they are "on the ground" here, such as where they can get their hair done or where they can find American food markets.  Prissy Mag aims to provide this type of insider information.  Finally, Priscilla says that there are numerous French aficionados of Prissy Mag as well.

The magazine sections include "Love Lives," "Arts," "Beyond Paris," "Close-ups," and "Life."  Each of these has multiple subsections, penned by numerous writers.  Priscilla selects her writers based on the compatibility of their style with that of the magazine.  She says that she loves adventurers and good storytellers most of all.  Sometimes, she selects writers on a story-by-story basis.  Priscilla promotes her writers' work in whatever way possible, which creates incentive for them to provide the best work possible.

Prissy Mag will participate in the Expat Expo event that is scheduled for February 2011.  This is a natural extension of Priscilla's desire to provide information to newcomers to Paris.  She says that it's an exciting project, and that she wished there was something like this available when she moved to Paris years ago.

Priscilla's pride and joy is her novel Stockdale, which was released in 2005.  It is a partially autobiographical novel about racism in 1980s Alabama, with the protagonist being a college-aged young woman named Cassie Taylor.  Look for a plot that incorporates interracial relationships, life in South Korea, and a vivid portrayal of life in a small, Southern town.

Stockdale - First edition

Author: Priscilla Lalisse

Priscilla self-published Stockdale, as more and more authors are doing these days.  When asked why she decided to do so, she responded that she investigated this option, "read all the warnings" about it, but decided in the end that it was the perfect solution for her.   She didn't submit her manuscript to a single publishing house, and did not look for an agent.  She says that she has never regretted it.

Stockdale is published with IUniverse, a print-on-demand company.  It is available in print and electronically through IUniverse, and is being published on Amazon's Kindle as well.  Priscilla is planning a second edition very soon, in which readers will find additional reviews—and most importantly—a preview of Priscilla's next book, which is nonfiction and entitled Next of Kin!  Moreover, Stockdale is being translated into French by popular demand!

For all you aspiring writers out there, Priscilla has this to say:

You have to make up your mind what you want out of the experience and then brainstorm and go for it. For instance, one can get so much free marketing right now that it’s unbelievable. Just look at Facebook, Twitter, MySpace—you can use all of this modern technology to get the word out there. You have to think outside the box a little.

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Black Paris Profiles™is a Discover Paris trademark.