[1][2] Davies studied modern languages at St Anne's College, Oxford, and worked as a freelance journalist in New York and Chicago before moving to Lancaster, Lancashire.
[7] Her second collection, The Redemption of Galen Pike (2014), won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award[8] and the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize.
[25][26] Set in a south Indian mission house, it tells the story of a middle-aged librarian searching for a fresh start.
[30][31][32] It tells the story of a minister sent to a remote Scottish island to evict its last inhabitant.
[41] Davies has also won a Northern Writers' Award for fiction[42][43] and a Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library.