Natalie Harris-Spencer

It’s kind of wild to say, but this year I was accepted into every single juried summer writing conference I applied for, including Bread Loaf and Sewanee, the top two most prestigious conferences in America. Here are the conferences that gave me a big, fat YES: Now, finances, PTO allowance from my day job, and

Out of nowhere, I just learned that my manuscript, FOURTH, has been chosen as a 2024 Killer Nashville Top Pick in the suspense category of the Killer Nashville Claymore Awards for best first 50 pages of an unpublished manuscript.  This news comes as I’m finally getting my head above water after being submerged in babyland.

I have some bonkers (or more aptly, conkers) news: I won the Chestnut Review Stubborn Writers Contest! I am so thrilled, bewildered, and grateful to the Chestnut Review readers, judges, and my fellow participants. The old adage is true: winning isn’t everything. But it is humbling. And validating. And all those other spectacular feelings that

Since graduating from my MFA in Creative Writing, I’ve been seeking connection. Community. Yes, I have my regular text cheer squad, my weekly writing group, and my Zoom writing pals. I love these people dearly. They are phenomenal writers. But nothing quite beats the sense of community that you get from immersing yourself with other

I’m usually the one doing the interviewing, so it was lovely to be the one being interviewed for Real Writer purposes for Oyster River Pages in their latest contributor showcase, where my short story, Fish Out of Water, was selected under their Emerging Voices in Fiction category. Honestly, I did this interview about a year

My wonderful alma mater Stonecoast, USM, runs a student-led bi-weekly reading series called the Stone House Readers’ Series, livestreamed to audiences on Facebook and YouTube. This neat initiative provides faculty, current, and former students, and friends of Stonecoast with a platform to read and share their work. Here I am, in the prodigious company of

I’m shocked, honored, astounded, and frankly a little baffled to announce that I am the winner of the 2021 Hummingbird Flash Fiction Prize. Anyone who knows my work knows that I write twisty, troubling tales of surprise, usually involving immigrants doing unexpected things in strange settings, fish women, food, ghosts, satire, and other horrible weirdness.

Two years ago, I started my MFA program in Creative Writing at Stonecoast, University of Southern Maine. I entered the program with the goal of finishing my first novel. I remember feeling terrified that I was too old to be a student again. What if it was all recent undergrads? What if I was too