Fiona Farrell publishes fiction, non-fiction, poetry and plays. Her first novel, The Skinny Louie Book, won the 1993 New Zealand Book Award for Fiction. Since then, her work has been shortlisted on six occasions and four novels have been longlisted for the International Dublin IMPAC Literary Award. Her short fiction and poetry have been widely anthologized. She has received numerous fellowships, including the Mansfield Fellowship to Menton and the University of Otago Burns Fellowship.

She has appeared at many festivals within New Zealand and abroad at Edinburgh, Vancouver and Adelaide. In 2007 she received the Prime Minister’s Award for Fiction and in 2012 the ONZM for Services to Literature.