NATALIE APPLETON is an award-winning Canadian writer living in Vernon, BC. She is a graduate of the University of Regina School of Journalism and the MA in Creative Writing (Narrative non-fiction) program at City University London, UK.

In her former life as a journalist, she worked at newspapers across the Prairies, including the Lethbridge Herald and the Medicine Hat News.

Natalie won Prairie Fire’s Banff Centre Bliss Carman Poetry Contest, and her stories have appeared in publications around the world, including The New York Times.

Natalie’s literary memoir, I Have Something to Tell You, is a coming-of-age story pitched as a mix between The Alchemist and Bridget Jones’ Diary, set partly in her hometown of Medicine Hat, and in Bangkok.

Her essay our brothers started dying won the Room Magazine creative non-fiction award, and was listed among the "Notable Essays & Literary Nonfiction of 2024" in The Best American Essays 2025

Her debut novel, I Want to Die in My Boots (Brindle & Glass), tells the story of the formidable Belle Jane, who led a gang of horse and cattle thieves in Saskatchewan in the 1920’s.

Natalie’s second novel, Mad Hell-Rush of Days (NeWest Press), is a work of literary historical fiction about two misfits whose worlds collide on a wild, harsh prairie in the early 1900s.

Natalie is a recipient of a Canada Council of the Arts grant for a related work in progress.

By day, Natalie runs Rose Moon Books and she supports communications for local arts organizations.

She is also an enthusiastic member of the Okanagan writing community, volunteering with the Valley Voices reading series.