Messer is the founding editor of next generation Texas news site The Barbed Wire. A Texan, novelist, journalist, consultant, and editor, Messer’s work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Marie Claire, Slate, and The Daily Beast, as well as numerous Texas publications. She has also contributed editing and fact-checking work to New York Times-bestselling book projects; completed groundbreaking investigative reports on crime and politics; written first-person essays on murder and sexual-assault; and she was the first reporter to name the identity of the Golden State Killer. Under her leadership, The Barbed Wire was named a finalist for the 2025 A-LIST Awards in the Creative & Digital Media Disruptor category, which “recognizes a startup or scale-up pushing the boundaries of creativity, storytelling, and audience engagement through digital media, entertainment, gaming, or immersive experiences.” In 2026, she was named an Austin Under 40 finalist for Journalist of the Year.
During her more than 5 years at The Daily Beast, her team won Best Email Newsletter at the 2018 Digiday Publishing Awards. From 2013-2015, she served as a local crime reporter for the The Waco Tribune-Herald, where her work on the 2015 biker shooting was recognized First Place in Deadline Writing by the Texas Managing Editors Excellence in Journalism Awards. After college, she worked as an editorial assistant at a travel magazine and a legislative fellow for The Texas Observer. She graduated from McGill University in Montreal.
Her debut novel, “Something’s Wrong With the Girls,” will be published by Rare Bird.
Read her work; follow her on X, Instagram or Threads @oliviamesser; or send her an email to oliviamesser (at) protonmail (dot) com.
Olivia Messer 