Natalie, who is Thai and German, grew up across Southeast Asia before moving to the UK to study English and History at the University of York, followed by an MSc in International Politics at the University of Edinburgh. Although she started her career writing for others, including as a speech writer, her passion has always been fiction.

Natalie is the winner of the Primadonna Prize 2023, having submitted the opening of her debut novel Mother, Ghost, Mango Seed. Juniper, an imprint of HarperCollins, will publish the book in June 2026. Her work has also been shortlisted for the University of East Anglia’s David T.K. Wong Fellowship.

Natalie’s short story, ‘A Bowl of Soup’, was published in Together in the UK’s anthology, Hear our Stories by Victorina Press in August 2023. This story also won the Creative Writing NZ flash fiction competition and was shortlisted for the Exeter Short Story Prize.

She lives in a small village in North Buckinghamshire with her husband and two children. 

photo (c) John Cairns