Her critically acclaimed first novel, Going Down Swinging (2000), was followed by The Chick at the Back of the Church (2001), a poetry book that was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Award.
Her second novel, Cease to Blush, was published in 2006 and subsequently chosen as one of the year's best books by The Globe and Mail, January Magazine, and The Tyee.
Livingston's One Good Hustle, a novel about a young woman's fear that she is genetically doomed to become a con artist, was long-listed for the 2012 Giller Prize and selected by The Globe and Mail, January Magazine, and Toronto's Now as one of the year's best books.
She has received fellowships from The Banff Centre, MacDowell Colony, Escape to Create (Seaside, Florida), Ucross Foundation and Omi International Arts Center.
[14] In 2017 Billie Livingston received the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award "in recognition of a remarkable body of work, and in anticipation of future contributions to Canadian literature.