Kristien Potgieter is an author and editor from Johannesburg, South Africa. Her forthcoming debut novel, In the Valley of Bones, won the 2025 Island Prize for an Unpublished African Novel. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, where she was the 2015–2016 Booker Scholar.

She has worked as a professional editor since 2013, working extensively both with self-published authors and for a wide range of publishers, organisations and universities, including Pan Macmillan South Africa, Macmillan Education South Africa, University of South Africa, University of the Western Cape and the government of Botswana, among others. She is also the author of several children's books published in South Africa.

She is represented by Sara Langham at David Higham Associates.