May-Lan Tan was born in Hong Kong, where her family had migrated from Indonesia. She lived in California before moving to London and now lives in Berlin.
She studied fine art at Goldsmiths and has worked professionally as a children's party entertainer, commercial illustrator, personal chef, artist's model, and medical secretary.
Her fiction has been published in Zoetrope: All-Story, The Atlas Review, Arete, and The Reader. Things to Make and Break was first published by CB Editions in 2014 when it was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award.