About me
Hello! I’m Lisa Greenstein, a writer and author for children all over the world. I’ve written maths for children from KG, primary and secondary school levels, as well as science, social studies and even creative and performing arts. My books are in classrooms in South Africa, India, Jamaica, Sri Lanka, The Bahamas and many other countries.
My most well-known series are the Nelson Maths series and the new Problem Solving Skills series, both published by Oxford University Press. Another series I’m very proud of is Primary Mathematics for Jamaica, published by Hodder Education and approved by the Ministry of Education in Jamaica for use in classrooms from 2024 onwards.
I have traveled to many countries to present author training workshops, as well as professional development workshops and webinars for teachers. I have worked with teachers and writers in Botswana, Jamaica, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Trinidad and Tobago and Belize.
My background and training
When I was growing up, I was passionate about drama and puppetry. I studied theatre, journalism and literature, and began working in the field of drama-in-education, using drama and games to make learning and teaching more fun. (For one of my final drama exams, I designed an interactive performance where we taught primary children about shapes and geometry!)
In 2001, I started working in educational publishing, developing activity-based approaches to maths. Since then, I have authored and co-authored many different published books and series, including titles for the Rainbow Reading scheme (Cambridge University Press, South Africa), and the Junior African Writer Series (originally Heinemann, and later acquired by Pearson). Some of my books have been translated into Kiswahili, Kinyarwanda, French and Amharic.
Other creative directions
Some of the hats I’ve worn include: puppeteer, painter, radio voiceover artist, teacher, long-distance swimmer, singer and even bread baker. I’m also the parent of three children (who often have to test out maths problems to help me figure out whether they are interesting enough to make it into a book!)
I’m always open to researching and finding out more about subject areas that are new to me. I find it especially important to immerse myself in the culture and history of a country if I am writing materials specifically for children in that place. This helps me to write for a wide range of markets – whether it is second-language English for Korea, drama and dance for Botswana, or history, citizenship and civics for the Bahamas.
Publishers
I work with a wide range of educational publishers, including:
Pearson Education
Macmillan Education and Macmillan South Africa
Hodder Education (a division of Hachette)
Get in touch
If you are an educational publisher looking for authors, please get in touch via the contact page.