Lesley Glaister (born 4 October 1956)^[1] is a British novelist, poet and playwright. She has written 15 novels, Blasted Things (2020) being the most recent, one play and numerous short stories and radio plays. She is a lecturer in creative writing at the University of St Andrews,^[2] and is a regular contributor of book reviews to The Spectator and The Times.^[2] She is married to poet Andrew Greig.^[3]

Her subject matter is often serious (murder, madness and obsession crop up regularly in her books) but with a thread of dark humour running through it. Her first novel Honour Thy Father (1990) won the Somerset Maugham Award and a Betty Trask Award, Now You See Me was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for fiction in 2002, and Easy Peasy was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1998.^[2][4] Little Egypt, published in 2014, won a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. Her first play, Bird Calls, was performed at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, in 2003.

Glaister is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.^[5] She is currently writer in residence at the University of Edinburgh.