Ten Badd Bitches Set to Bubble in 2024

As a high-energy bookish extrovert, Lisa Lucas is a rare combination. A prominent leader with unparalleled passion, she serves as an essential champion of literature.

Lisa Lucas was the youngest, first woman, and first person of color to be the Executive Director of the National Book Foundation. In 2020, she accepted a position to head Pantheon and Schocken Books as the Senior Vice President.

In the past, Lisa has served as the Publisher of Guernica, a non-profit online magazine focusing on writing that explores the intersection of art and politics with an international and diverse focus.

Before being hired in July 2020 as SVP & Publisher of Pantheon and Schocken Books, the first Black publisher in Pantheon’s 80-year history.

As Lucas noted in the now famous New York Times piece, “ ‘I’m not here to make Black Pantheon … I’m here for all the gods, the whole pantheon.’ This was also her approach at the National Book Foundation, which she directed for almost five years. ‘Books are for everyone,’ she declared many times while she was there … ‘People misunderstand how long change takes … They want change right now.’ Building a foundation that lasts requires years — years of thoughtful conversations with staff members, years of losing bids, years of mentoring writers, years of books that succeed and fail.”

This beautiful black beauty is bound to have little boys everywhere reading in the new year, I'll bet.