I am a narrative designer and game writer with 4 years experience working in the games industry. I am also an award-winning writer of short fiction, with a career spanning almost 15 years.

​

Since 2021 I have been working as Senior Writer on Bonsai Collective's debut game, Luna Abyss.  It has been an immense and exciting learning curve for me, as a long-time writer who has been passionate about videogames since childhood. I have drawn on my background as a writer of short fiction to create strange, story-driven narratives, populated by a diverse range of characters.

​

I particularly enjoy collaborating with other disciplines to integrate the story and characters fully into the game world. You can hear me talk a little about working with the composer of Luna Abyss here. I have also written for Playstation Blog about the collaborative process between the art and narrative teams on Luna Abyss.

​

Through my work on Luna Abyss I have developed my skills not just as a writer, but as a narrative designer also. Working primarily in Unreal Engine 4, I have gained experience in integrating dialogue and placing triggers, using my best judgement to understand where dialogue should be placed so that it interacts optimally with combat, traversal and the overall player experience.

 

Working in-engine has been one of the most exciting parts of my development, and I've sought to learn new skills to improve my narrative design work - from dabbling in Articy Draft 3, to programming dialogue in Rust and Bevy during game jams. I've also worked closely with Bonsai Collective programmers to experiment with systems for conditional dialogue, taking both player choice and passive events into account.

​

I've also worked to integrate localised text into Luna Abyss, including dialogue, UI elements and supplementary lore - resulting in a fully subtitled player experience in German, French, Spanish and Chinese.

​

In 2024 I took part in a panel discussion on Worldbuilding Through Music and Narrative at Reboot Develop, Dubrovnik. I also took part in the 2024 Limit Break mentorship scheme as a mentor in games writing and narrative design.

​

I am an enthusiastic game jam participant, and have contributed narrative design and dialogue writing for two projects - one of which placed #8 out of 486 entries in Best Story.

​

Outside of games, I am a three-time British Fantasy Award winning author of weird fiction. My work has appeared in translation in Spanish and Finnish - my novella On The Shoulders of Otava was translated by Lauri Lattu and published by Haamu Kustannus as Otavaisen olkapäillä - well received by Finnish sf magazine Tähtivaeltaja.

​

My work has also been nominated for the Shirley Jackson awards, and longlisted for the British Science Fiction Association awards.

​

I have previously completed half a PhD in Japanese horror literature and folklore, culminating in a soon-to-be published chapter on Japanese toilet ghosts. I was also (briefly) a pro wrestling journalist for Daily DDT, and served as Women’s Wrestling Editor at Steelchair Magazine. My article on the Golden Lovers received a Kevin Kelly shout-out during NJPW’s 2018 G1 tournament, which I haven’t stopped talking about.

​

I speak Japanese at A2/N4 level - いつも日本語を上達するために頑張っています！ It's a useful skill in my work as a rewriter for Seven Seas Ltd - localising four different manga series, working with the translated transcript to help deliver a smooth, natural English script, whilst maintaining the integrity of the original text.