Lisa A. Phillips
Photo credit: Jana Martin
Lisa A. Phillips is the author of Unrequited: The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Romantic Obsession and Public Radio: Behind the Voices. She’s written about relationships, mental health, and teens for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Psychology Today, Cosmopolitan, Salon, and other outlets. She teaches journalism and the popular “Love and Heartbreak” seminar at the State University of New York at New Paltz. Phillips began her journalism career in public radio, working for radio stations in the Midwest and Northeast for more than a decade. She is a recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts grant and writing residencies at Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Ucross, and Jentel.
Lisa’s next book, First Love: Guiding Teens through Relationships and Heartbreak, is available in the U.S. on February 4th, 2025, and the U.K. on April 4th, 2025.
In First Love: Guiding Teens through Relationships and Heartbreak, Lisa A. Phillips chronicles the challenges today’s adolescents face as they navigate crushes, dating, and breakups—and the challenges adults face as they strive to provide guidance and support. Phillips sheds light on how the relationships teens have today are different from their parents’ generation, including their reliance on technology and social media, the rise of young people identifying as LGBTQ+, high rates of depression and anxiety, and consent consciousness. She provides concrete strategies and insights from experts and teens themselves on ways parents and other adults can help young people cope with the timeless issues of love and heartbreak.
Told from the perspective of a professor, mother, and award-winning journalist, First Love is a critical resource for parents, educators, mental health professionals, and others who want to understand the new realities of teen relationships—and help teens become caring, self-aware, and thriving young adults.
“With a novel emphasis on feelings—both on the part of the adolescents and the adults—she tracks the life cycle of first relationships, from crush to break-up, and the result is one of the best books I’ve ever read about both parenting and parenthood. Phillips provides a new vocabulary and navigational tools for this bewildering new terrain, and what a service that is; what an eye-opener her work is to read.”
—Jennifer Senior, winner of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize and author of the New York Times bestseller All Joy and No Fun
“First Love brings alive how our teens experience and are shaped by romantic love, and serves as a validating and educational resource for parents looking to support their children (and themselves) through their adolescents’ relationships. This book belongs on the bookshelf of every parent.”
— Alexandra H. Solomon, PhD, faculty at Northwestern University, award-winning author of Love Every Day, and host of the podcast Reimagining Love