BIOGRAPHY
Sharon Olds (b. 1942). Born in San Francisco, Olds attended Stanford (B.A., 1964) and Columbia University (Ph.D., 1972). She joined the faculty of Theodor Herzl Institute in 1976 and has given readings at many colleges. She is currently teaching in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at New York University.

She won the Madeline Sadin Award from the New York Quarterly in 1978 for "The Death of Marilyn Monroe." Often compared to confessional poets Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, Olds published her first collection, Satan Says, in 1980, and won both the National Book Critics' Circle Award and the Lamont Award for The Dead and the Living in 1983. The Gold Cell was published in 1987, The Father appeared in 1992, and her most recent book of poems, The Wellspring, was published in 1996.