Olivia Fitzsimons is from Northern Ireland now living in County Wicklow with her husband, Film Director, Brian Durnin, and two children. She is passionate about access to the arts for all, especially in publishing, with a focus on pay and conditions for working class and diverse writers.

Her debut novel, The Quiet Whispers Never Stop (2022), was shortlisted for the Kate O'Brien and Butler Literary Awards, and named as one of the Irish Examiner Books of the Year. An Italian edition, Le Voci Non Si Fermano, was released by Altantide, in 2022.

She is a contributing editor at The Stinging Fly and commissions/edits the This So-Called Writing Life essay series. 

Her writing has been awarded Literature Bursaries from the Arts Council of Ireland and Northern Ireland, as well as residencies from Centre Culturel Irlandais Paris, The Dean Art Studios, Cill Rialaig and Tyrone Guthrie. 

She has given workshops and masterclasses at universities and festivals across Ireland and Europe working with organisations such as MOLI, The Irish Writing Centre and University College Cork. She enjoys interviewing other writers, with appearances at Dalkey, Dingle, Ennis and Belfast book festivals.

Her fiction and essays have appeared in numerous publications including The Stinging Fly, The Irish Times, Banshee, and broadcast on RTE and BBC Radio 4. 

She is adapting Donal Ryan's novel, All We Shall Know, with Denise MacCormack, through Ponder Media supported by Screen Ireland.

Olivia is working on several plays, her second novel and a short story collection.