ORLA MURPHY was born into a family of artists in County Cork. Her father was the sculptor Seamus Murphy, author of Stone Mad. After training as a conservator of books and manuscripts at Trinity College Dublin, she worked freelance, chiefly for England’s National Trust but also for Trinity College Library and various private collectors. She studied music at University College Cork with Sean Ó Riada and Aloys Fleischmann.

Her work has been short-listed for Hennessy Awards and for the Fish Short Story Competition, and has also been selected by David Marcus for New Irish Writing and The Phoenix Short Stories Anthology (1999). Her short stories and drama have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and RTE Radio 1. Her poetry has appeared in Cyphers and other journals.