Nationality 1: American

Birthdate: 1932

Linda Olenik Pastan was born on May 27, 1932, in New York City. Her interest in writing poetry emerged when she was only ten or eleven years old, but she did not anticipate pursuing a career as a writer. In 1953, she married Ira Pastan, a molecular biologist, and the couple had two sons and a daughter. Pastan graduated in 1954 with a bachelor of arts from Radcliffe College. In 1955, she earned a master of library science from Simmons College, and in 1957 she received a master of arts from Brandeis University. Although she did not study writing formally, she continued to work at it and to seek improvement of her writing skills. She won the first of many poetry awards in 1958, when at age twenty-six she received the Mademoiselle Dylan Thomas Poetry Award. The noted American poet Sylvia Plath came in second. Among Pastan's other awards and...