Lesley Bannatyne

Lesley Bannatyne recieved the 2024 AWP Grace Paley Prize for her novel in stories Lake Song, which was published by Mad Creek Books (OSU) in 2025. In 2026, the book was selected as a 'Must Read' for the Massachusetts Book Award.  Her debut short story collection, Unaccustomed to Grace was published by Kallisto Gaia Press in 2022.

Lesley also writes extensively on Halloween, especially its history, literature, and contemporary celebration. One of the country's foremost authorities on the holiday, Bannatyne has shared her knowledge on television specials for the History Channel ("The Haunted History of Halloween," "The Real Story of Halloween"), with Time Magazine, Slate, National Geographic, and contributed the Halloween article to World Book Encyclopedia. In 2007, she and several compatriots set the Guinness World Record for Largest Halloween Gathering, a title they held until 2009. Her work on Halloween ranges from a children's book, Witches Night Before Halloween, to  Halloween Nation, which examines the holiday through the eyes of its celebrants, nominated for a 2011 Bram Stoker Award. Her other titles are A Halloween How-To. Costumes, Parties, Destinations, Decorations (2001); A Halloween Reader. Poems, Stories, and Plays from Halloweens Past (2004), and Halloween. An American Holiday, An American History, celebrated 25 years in print in 2015.

Lesley's fiction and essays have been published in the Boston Globe, Smithsonian, Christian Science Monitor, and Zone 3, Pangyrus, Shooter, Craft, Ocotillo, Fish, and Bosque Literary Magazines. She won the 2018 Bosque fiction prize and received the 2019 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Award for fiction, the 2020 Ghoststory.com fiction prize, and was a finalist for many others, including the Tennessee William Literary Festival Writing Award, the Carve Prose & Poetry Contest, and the Hudson Prize. As a freelance journalist, she covered stories ranging from druids in Massachusetts to relief workers in Bolivia. Her Masters in Creative Writing is from Harvard University Extension Studies.

Lesley lives and works in Somerville, Massachusetts.