Sondra Spatt Olsen was born in Brooklyn and has lived most of her life in Manhattan. Her fiction takes place on the crowded sidewalks and in the crowded apartments of New York City. She continues to live in the same flat where she and her husband raised two clever children. Her son now lives on the upper West Side; her daughter has returned to the family roots in Brooklyn; her husband, a retired locomotive engineer, spends much of his time in their country house in the Harlem Valley.

Traps, Ms. Olsen's first story collection, was selected by Marilynne Robinson for the Iowa Short Fiction Award. Her best work, such as "The Sigh of the Hard-Pressed Creature," "A Loaf of Bread, a Jug of Wine" and "Free Writing" has appeared in literary magazines, including Yale Review, Antioch Review, Iowa Review, Ontario Review, Mississippi Review, and many other publications around the country.