[1] She began her journalism cadetship with The Melton Mail Express, and other titles in The Age Suburban Newspaper Group, covering courts, local council, and school fetes.
[citation needed] In 2002, Overington assumed a position as foreign correspondent in New York for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
Her first book, Only in New York, published by Allen & Unwin in 2006, is a comedy based on her family's experiences with young twins in the United States.
[2] While based in the US, Overington's work included an investigation into an Australian literary scandal involving Norma Khouri's book Forbidden Love.
Together with Malcolm Knox, Overington won a Walkley Award for investigative journalism in 2004 for her research into the mysterious life of Jordanian-American-Australian author Norma Khouri.
[12] In 2014, Overington's book Last Woman Hanged was released, documenting the results of her five-year investigation into the conviction and execution of Louisa Collins in New South Wales in 1889.