Grubbies

About Lacey

Lacey N. Dunham is the author of the novel The Belles (2025), named a Best Book of 2025 by Library Journal and Crime Reads, and  Fall of the House of Graystone (forthcoming 2027), both from Atria / Simon & Schuster. Named a 2025 Writer to Watch by Poets & Writers Magazine, Dunham has received fellowships from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the Sewanee Writers Conference, and Catapult.  

Lacey is the editor of five anthologies of youth writing that have received recognition from the Washington Post, NPR, and the New York Times Style Magazine. She has served stints at literary journals A Public Space and Electric Literature, and she was most recently Fiction Editor at Necessary Fiction and Contributing Editor for Story Magazine.  

An advocate for arts and community, Lacey has spoken at Georgetown University’s Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice, Johns Hopkins University, West Virginia University, George Washington University, and the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP), among others. Her short prose has been published in Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, Witness, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and elsewhere.  She lives in Washington, DC with too many books, but only two cats.   

Consulting interests: I am open to collaborating with clients who write literary, upmarket, and commercial fiction. I have an extensive background working with speculative and so-called “genre” writing, including suspense, mystery/thriller, horror, gothic, romance, and light fantasy. Whether you are looking to discuss craft broadly or more specifically, seeking a champion and cheerleader to sustain you through a longer project or the querying process, or looking for feedback on your manuscript and query letter, my work is personalized and unique to every individual. Writers are met where they are and provided tools and support to grow.