Author Leslie Esdaile Banks—known to the sf community as L.A. Banks—died 2 August 2011 of a rare form of adrenal cancer. Born 11 December 1959 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she won the 2009 Romantic Times Booklover’s Convention Career Achievement Award for Paranormal Fiction, the 2008 Essence Magazine Storyteller of the Year Award, and the 2008 Best 50 Women in Business Award for the State of Pennsylvania.
Her first published novel was Sundance, which appeared in 1996 under the byline Leslie Esdaile. She wrote more than a dozen romance novels, some appearing as by Leslie E. Banks, and four crime/suspense novels under her full name. In 2003, the first of her 12-volume paranormal Vampire Huntress Legend series, Minion, appeared. She also wrote the six-volume Crimson Moon series.
The previously announced Big Hug Writers Bash, scheduled for this Saturday, will go on as planned, but will instead be used to raise money to help Leslie’s daughter.
Related articles previously published on SFScope:
Writers’ Bash: Benefit for Author L.A. Banks (25 July 2011)
Author L.A. Banks is gravely ill; friends request donations (13 June 2011)