Lisa Knopp was born and raised in Burlington, Iowa. She received her education at the University of Iowa, Iowa Wesleyan College, Western Illinois University, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Knopp is the author of four collections of essays, Interior Places, The Nature of Home, Flight Dreams: A Life in the Midwestern Landscape, and Field of Vision, each of which explores the concepts of place, home, nature, and spirituality. Her essays have appeared in many of the best publications, including Shenandoah, Gettysburg Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Missouri Review, Connecticut Review, Creative Nonfiction, Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, and Northwest Review. Six of her essays have received Notable Essay citations in the Best American Essays series (1991, 1994, 2001, 2001, 2008, 2010). Her recently completed collection of essays, Three Rivers: Journeys at Home and Beyond, about the Mississippi, Missouri, and Platte Rivers, is forthcoming from the University of Missouri Press in the spring of 2012.
Knopp is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Nebraska - Omaha, where she teaches courses in creative nonfiction, and is visiting faculty in the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Nonfiction at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland. She lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, near her son and daughter.