.... .. ..	THERE IS A CLEAR-HEARTED AND HUMANE WRITER at work here, whose work holds room for both suffering and grace. —Shruti Swami, A House is a Body and The Archer I LOVE IT WHEN I FIND A GEM of a book and often think, some of the best writers sneak up on you! — bookstalkerblog
Lesley Bannatyne is the 2024 recipient of the GRACE PALEY AWARD for short fiction for LAKE SONG (Mad Creek Books, 2025). Her debut collection of short stories, Unaccustomed to Grace, was published by Kallisto Gaia Press in 2022. Lesley's fiction and essays have appeared in the Boston Globe, Smithsonian, Christian Science Monitor, and Zone 3, Shooter, Craft, and many other literary magazines. She won the 2018 Bosque fiction prize and received the 2019 Tucson Festival of Books literary award for fiction and her work has been nominated for the Story Prize, Pushcart, and Best of the Net. As a freelance journalist, she has covered topics ranging from druids in Massachusetts to relief workers in Bolivia. She holds an ALM in Creative Writing and Literature from Harvard University Extension Studies. I am always happy visiting BOOK GROUPS and talking with readers. If your group is reading Lake Song or Unaccustomed to Grace and you'd like an author visit (Zoom or real world), write me at lesley.bannatyne@gmail.com

	Short Stories READ “Corpse Walks Into a Bar,” Winner, The Ghost Story, 2020; Tucson Festival of Books First Place Literary Award for Fiction; short listed for both the Howard Frank Mosher Short Fiction Prize (2017, under the title "Weight of a Soul") and the Masters Review Anthology Prize. Illustration by Andy Paciorek
	READ "The Study and Practice of Astral Projection," Craft Literary, January 2020
s	READ "When the Bough Breaks," MAYDAY Literary Magazine, August 2023. Illustration by Danzhu Hu, "What a Beautiful World"
	READ "Mad Lil," Pangyrus Magazine, January 2024
	READ "OMG Winn Handler Moved Next Door," Sequestrum Editors Reprint, January 2024
	Other SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS you might enjoy
	Watch an interview with Lesley on the craft of writing: Author Spotlight