Stacey Lounsberry’s love for reading and writing began at a young age. Every time her mother returned home from an out-of-town business trip, she brought with her a brand-new diary (sometimes leather, sometimes cardboard, but always with a lock-and-key). It didn’t take long for Stacey to fill the pages with stories. In 2010, she graduated from Morehead State University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, with a focus on fiction. There, she had completed a close mentorship in fiction writing under New York Times bestselling author and Kentucky’s 2021 Poet Laureate Crystal Wilkinson, as well as a mentorship in poetry under Rebecca Howell, poetry editor at The Oxford American. She was heavily influenced by poet George Eklund and fiction author Chris Holbrook. After attending the 2007 Women Writer’s Conference, she had a taste of publication and wanted more. Soon after, she won an honorable mention in the 2007 Sarabande Poetry Contest. She was the fiction editor, and later the co-editor-in-chief, of the art and literary magazine, Inscape.

In 2014, she married writer, illustrator, and educator Jonathan Lounsberry. Just before the birth of their second child, Stacey earned a Master of Arts in Teaching in Special Education from the University of the Cumberlands. After an almost decade-long hiatus, her own children’s love of her stories prompted her to write again, and she hasn’t stopped since. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Mersey Review, Hiraeth Zine, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, Ariel Chart, The First Line, and others. She is actively seeking representation for her stories for children.

As of Summer 2025, she is a prose reader for Broad Ripple Review, a literary magazine releasing its inaugural publication in Fall 2025.

Her favorite authors include Fred Chappell, Jesse Stuart, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Margaret Atwood, Gloria Naylor, Peter Straub, Kate Chopin, Shirley Jackson, Sharon Olds, Truman Capote, Diane Ackerman, Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Walker, Naomi Shihab Nye, Khaled Hosseini, Maxine Hong Kingston, Sherwood Anderson, Willa Cather, among infinite others.

The authors of YA and children’s literature who are very dear to her heart include Abby Hanlon, Roald Dahl, George Ella Lyon, Brenden Wenzel, Lois Lowry, Elizabeth George Speare, Cynthia Rylant, JK Rowling, Julian Gough, Beverly Cleary, Maurice Sendak, Mo Willems, RL Stine, and many, many more.