Natalia Theodoridou

1 universe Last reviewed 2026-08-19

Natalia Theodoridou was born around 1984 in Thessaloniki, Greece, and is a Greek novelist, interactive-fiction writer, and scholar with an unusually international academic background. She holds a BA in theatre from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, a Master of Research in drama studies from Royal Holloway, University of London, a Master of Arts in religious studies from the University of Chicago (as a Fulbright Scholar, 2008-2010), and a PhD in media and cultural studies from SOAS University of London, which included fifteen months of fieldwork studying Balinese dance in Indonesia; she is also a graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop. Theodoridou's short fiction includes 'The Birding: A Fairy Tale' (2017), depicting a plague that transforms nearly everyone in the world into birds, which won the World Fantasy Award for Short Fiction in 2018. Their debut novel, Sour Cherry, was published by Tin House and Wildfire in April 2025 and won the 2026 Locus Award for Best First Novel. Theodoridou has received four Nebula Award nominations for Best Game Writing in the interactive fiction category and multiple BSFA nominations for short fiction, and served as fiction editor at sub-Q Magazine until its hiatus in 2020. Their work centers recurring themes of transformation, diaspora, gender, migration, myth, and queerness, often reworking fairy-tale structures toward political ends.

Universe(s)

Books

• Sour Cherry (2025) · Sour Cherry Core Canon

Aggregate across all universes

• Total Core Canon books across all universes: 1 book
• Award recognitions across all universes: 1 (1 finalist mention)

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