Toby Olson (born 1937 Chicago) is an American novelist. 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 and Long Island University. Toby Olson has published eight novels, the most recent of which – The Blond Box – appeared from Fiction Collective-2 in 2003; and numerous books of poetry, including Human Nature (New Directions). A new novel, The Bitter Half, is forthcoming. The recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts, Olson’s novel Seaview received the PEN/Faulkner award for The Most Distinguished Work of American Fiction in 1983. Toby Olson lives in Philadelphia and in North Truro, on Cape Cod.