Toby Olson (born 1937

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

) is an American novelist and winner of the 1983 PEN/ Faulkner Award for Fiction.

Life

Through high school and his four years in the Navy as a surgical technician, he lived in California, Arizona, and Texas. He graduated from

Occidental College Occidental College (informally Oxy) is a private liberal arts college in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1887 as a coeducational college by clergy and members of the Presbyterian Church, it became non-sectarian in 1910. It is one of the oldes ...

and

Long Island University Long Island University (LIU) is a private university with two main campuses, LIU Post and LIU Brooklyn, in the U.S. state of New York. It offers more than 500 academic programs at its main campuses, online, and at multiple non-residential. LIU ...

. He co-founded and taught at the Aspen Writers' Workshop, and at

and

The New School For Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSSR ...

, and since 1975

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then called Ba ...

. Recently, he has collaborated with composer

Paul Epstein Paul Epstein (July 24, 1871 – August 11, 1939) was a German mathematician. He was known for his contributions to number theory, in particular the Epstein zeta function. Epstein was born and brought up in Frankfurt, where his father was a p ...

, including chamber music, songs, a short story set for voice and piano, and two chamber operas, ''Dorit'', and ''Chihuahua''. Both operas were performed by the

Opera Theater. He lives in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

and North Truro, on Cape Cod.

Awards

* 1983

PEN/Faulkner Award The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living American citizens. The winner receives US$15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US$5000. Fi ...

, for '' Seaview'' * 1985

Guggenheim Fellowships Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

* 2015

Henry Viscardi Achievement Awards The Henry Viscardi Achievement Awards were established to honor the legacy of the founder of the Viscardi Center, Dr. Henry Viscardi, Jr., a leading disability rights advocate who wore prosthetic limbs. These international Awards, first conferr ...

* Rockefeller Foundations * National Endowment for the Arts

Works

Novels

* * * * * * ''Utah'' * * * * * ''The Bitter Half''. * ''Tampico''.

Poetry

* ''The Wrestlers & other poems''. Barlenmir House, 1984 * * *

References

External links

"Toby Olson", ''Shearsman Books''Toby Olson letters to Carl Thayler collection
held b
Special Collections, University of Delaware Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Olson, Toby 1937 births Living people 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American male novelists Occidental College alumni Long Island University alumni Long Island University faculty The New School faculty 20th-century American poets 21st-century American poets American male poets PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction winners 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers Novelists from New York (state) Novelists from Pennsylvania