Lise Serritslev Petersen grew up in Horsens, graduated in art history, and is an art history lecturer at Aarhus University. In 1979 she made her debut in the periodical Chancen with a series of prose poems that evolved in the course of the 1960s and 1970s and which were published collectively in 1983 under the title Søde essenser. Heroinerne fra Clemente.
She subsequently wrote a collection of prose poems entitled Ballader, 1991, and has also written three essay books about art: Symbolismens seere. Essays, 1988, Figur og landskab 1789-1899, 1990, and Arabesk og objekt 1890-1940. Essays om billeder, 1992, together with the hybrid Tyvesyn. Essays om drømme, 1995.