She won the 2018 Bosque fiction prize and received the 2019 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Award for fiction, the 2020 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. Her fiction and essays have been published in the Boston Globe, Smithsonian, Christian Science Monitor, and Zone 3, Pangyrus, Shooter, Craft, Ocotillo Review, Fish, and Bosque Literary Magazines. An American Holiday, An American History, celebrated 30 years in print in 2020. Poems, Stories, and Plays from Halloweens Past (2004), and Halloween. Costumes, Parties, Destinations, Decorations (2001) A Halloween Reader. The book was nominated for a 2011 Bram Stoker Award. Lesley has written five books on Halloween, ranging from a children's book, Witches Night Before Halloween, to Halloween Nation, which examines the holiday through the eyes of its celebrants. In 2007, she and several compatriots set the Guinness World Record for Largest Halloween Gathering, a title they held until 2009. One of the country's foremost authorities on Halloween, 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. She also writes short stories, many of which are included in her debut collection _Unaccustomed to Grace_, out from Kallisto Gaia Press in March, 2022. Through the course of her research, Bannatyne attended a séance for Houdini, a Samhain ritual gathering, a World Zombie Day event, and the Haunted Attraction National Tradeshow and Convention (HAuNTcon).Lesley Bannatyne is an American author who writes extensively on Halloween, especially its history, literature, and contemporary celebration. Traveling across the country, she visited and talked with fanatics and fang makers, professional haunters, registered mediums, psychologists, and Halloween enthusiasts ranging from NPR’s Garrison Keillor to Incubus guitarist Mike Einziger and The Simpsons’ “Treehouse of Horror” writer Mike Reiss to find out what the increasingly popular holiday means to people and how they celebrate it. It took two years of investigative work for Halloween authority Lesley Pratt Bannatyne to add a fifth book to her collection. Jeanne Keyes Youngson, president and founder, the Vampire Empire

“No one else has delved so deeply-and lovingly-into the mysteries of Halloween.” Chris Alexander, editor in chief, Fangoria magazine It’s an energetic, thorough and breathless salute to everyone’s favorite horror holiday.” Bannatyne makes a great case for celebrating Halloween everyday, all year long. “A sophisticated yet playful celebration of all things macabre, morbid and marvelous.

Lesley pratt bannatyne