Interview with Lesley Bannatyne as told to Gregory Jenkins
You are a writer of fiction and essays but have carved out a niche as someone known to write about Halloween. What led you down this path?
Nearly 40 years ago there was a publisher looking to create a series of books about the American history of holidays. By the time I heard about it, there were two left: Halloween and Election Day. The choice was easy for me; writing the book (my first) was not. (Turns out, there wasn’t nearly as much historical material for Halloween as there was for Election Day.) I wrote and rewrote the book several times and in doing so, fell more in love with the holiday, the creativity it evokes, and the way it’s played out in popular culture. There was enough material there that I went on to write four more Halloween-related books, including a literary anthology, a how-to, a children’s book, and one on popular culture.
Do you have a favorite work about Halloween and why?
Halloween Nation. Behind the Scenes of America’s Fright Night is probably my favorite as it allowed me to spend three years traveling around and interviewing the people that make Halloween what it is today–the monster prop creators, filmmakers, costumers, pumpkin carvers, ghost hunters, witches, pumpkin beer brewers – you get the picture. Halloween lovers are a charismatic, talented, big-hearted bunch.
I noticed you released a book of fiction this year.
After my last Halloween book I was looking to try something new. I took a beginning short story writing class at the Harvard Extension School. I was decades older than the other students and I had no idea how it would go—but writing the very first assignment was like finding a room in my house I never knew was there. No footnotes? No corroborating statement? No sources? You can just make this up? It was exhilarating. I continued to write short fiction, which led to my first book (Unaccustomed to Grace, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022) and then to Lake Song, which won the Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction, and as a result, was published by Mad Creek Books (OSU Press) this past September.
Tell us more about it?
Lake Song is a multigenerational saga set in the Finger Lakes of New York State over the course of 100 years, and gently haunted. I set the stories against a backdrop of real events—bootlegging, Klan attacks, gold smuggling, the Albany Ketchup Murders, the 1965 East Coast blackout—but the characters and plot are fictional. Spirits and spirituality are themes in Lake Song, but it is not a religious book. Rather, it is a novel-in-stories about how small moments move people to change course; how they accept, fight, love, atone, bend toward each other or let go. The complexities of the characters who populate the (fictional) small town of Kinder Falls were intriguing to me, as was the power of the lake that sustains them.
Is there anything about living in Somerville for so many years that influences you, your work?
I used to be a correspondent for the Boston Globe, and I learned that I could go anywhere in Somerville and find a story worth reporting. I didn’t even have to leave my neighborhood: I wrote two pieces about what I could see from my front porch. As for inspiration for fiction, just this week I watched an older woman ride a bright pink Vespa down the street smoking a cigarette, a kid practicing magic at a bus stop, and a man using a parked Blue Bike as an exercise bike (you have to peddle backward to make this work…). And of course, being surrounded by so much visual art, performance, and festival always makes me grateful that I ended up in Somerville. Even if I don’t personally know the artists and performers, I feel held by a community that encourages so much creativity.
Where do you find your “place/space” to write?
The couch. Living room. Sunlight. Laptop. And total quiet. Even the cat is banished.
Anything else to say about being an artist in Somerville and around so many other artists?
People think writing is a solitary art. It’s not. Writers need other writers to read early drafts and tell them what’s working and what’s not; several members of my various writing groups have been Somerville writers. Writers also need a literary community–bookstores, readings, author talks, lit crawls—and Somerville offers all of these.
Also, let me give credit to the Somerville Arts Council. I’ve been working in the arts in this city for over 30 years, and many of the projects I’ve worked on would never have happened without the SAC. I was one of the co-directors of Invisible Cities (1993-2003), which created site-specific theater/performance pieces in Somerville neighborhoods, supported by the Arts Council and permitted by the City of Somerville – even fireworks in an abandoned field! And would Porchfest happen without the help of the Arts Council? As a member of Somerville’s first post-menopausal, Brazilian-inspired percussion and vocal ensemble, SheBoom, I know we would never have reached the audiences we have without Porchfest.
More Artists of the Month from 2025
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About the Artist of the Month
This program is inspired by the Nave Gallery’s “Featured Artist” program, which ran from 2005 to 2009.
SAC’s Artist of the Month program is a way for us to celebrate the enormous wealth of talent in our city, by shining a spotlight on a different creative Somervillian each month.
This program has been put together by a whole raft of people: Coordinators Jenn Harrington (2013-2014) and Kellie Veiga (2013), Gilmore Tammy (2017) and Somerville Arts Council board members Matt Kaliner, Tim Devin, Valeria Amato, and Michael J. Epstein, Bill House (2019-2020), Charan Devereaux (2019-2025), Tori Weston (2019-2025) and Andrea Read (2022-2025). Current coordinators, are Kerrie Kemperman (2019-), Seth Garcia (2025-), and Ben Cuba (2026-).
Know of a great Somerville based artist who should be recognized, please nominate the artist for consideration. We seek artists who contribute to the community through their strong work and community collaborations. Artist should either reside in the City or contribute to the City’s vibrant art scene.