Olivia Fitzsimons is from Northern Ireland but now lives in Wicklow. She started writing at the close of 2017. From a working class background she is passionate about access to the Arts for all. 

Her debut novel, The Quiet Whispers Never Stop, was a winner of the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair 2020, published by John Murray Press in April 2022, and shortlisted for The Butler Literary Award and Kate O'Brien Debut Novel Prize. The Irish Examiner selected her debut as a Book of The Year 2023. An Italian edition by Altantide, Le Voci Non Si Fermano, was published in November 2022. 

She is a Contributing Editor for The Stinging Fly. 

Her writing can be found in many journals in print and online, including The Stinging Fly, The Irish Times, Banshee, The Cormorant, BBC Radio 4 and Irish Writers Handbook 2024. 

Her writing and professional development has been generously supported by Literary Awards from the Arts Council of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wicklow County Council Arts Office, Culture Ireland, and the National Mentoring Programme WORDS IRELAND.

She has received several residency awards: the latest a long term studio space with thirty other contemporary multi-genre Artists who reside at the DEANS ART STUDIOS in Dublin; a Centre Culturel Irlandais PARIS/Literature Ireland one month residency in 2023, and previously held residencies from Irish Writers Centre/Cill Rialaig and Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Annamakerig. 

Olivia has appeared at numerous Literary Festivals and events in Ireland and abroad, as writer and moderator. These include reader events in Italy, Germany and Belgium. In Ireland selected appearances such as Belfast Book Festival, Dingle Literary Festival and Ennis Book Club Festival: First Fridays @MOLI, CULTURE Night, Italian Irish Literary Festival, Way With Words Wicklow, Kildare Readers Festival and Kinsale Literary Festival. Online events include writing panel discussions for The Irish Writing Centre and The Stinging Fly, as well as Nollaig na Mban 2022, BridsFest for the German Embassy, and West Cork Literary Festival. 

In 2021 she was a participant in the Irish Writers Centre inaugral Evolution Programme and was selected to teach a self-directed Creative Writing course to First Year Undergraduates at The National University Ireland Galway for a semester. She has taught workshops to MA and 2nd Year students in Cork University and at several Literary Festivals and will appear at University of Limerick, Creative Winter Writing School, Doolin this year.

Her flash and short fiction has won or been placed in many competitions including Bray Literary Festival 2018, Fiction At The Friary New Writer Showcase at Cork International Short Story Festival, Benedict Kiely, Sunday Business Post/Penguin SS and Dalkey Creates. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Wigleaf Best of the Net, BIFFY TOP 50 and UK National Flash Fiction Award. 

Olivia holds an MA in Film from DIT and a BA HONs History from Trinity College Dublin and spent her Erasmus year at the Rijksuniversteit Groiningen, Netherlands.

She has several screenplays and plays in development and is currently working on a second novel and short story collection.