He studied English and American literature at the Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen and at the University of Ottawa in Canada, where he lived for half a year.

In many interviews, he recalls that the literary heroes of his childhood were Roald Dahl and Stephen King, who created in him a love for grim and dark fiction.

He later discovered the works of a wider range of contemporary writers such as Jonathan Safran Foer, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Neil Gaiman, and Yann Martel, whom he calls his greatest influences.

[5] Olde Heuvelt's story "The Day the World Turned Upside Down", published in Lightspeed, won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette in 2015.

[6] In 2016, Olde Heuvelt's worldwide debut novel HEX was published in the US by Tor Books and in the UK and Australia by Hodder & Stoughton.