Linda B Olenik was born in the Bronx, New York on May 27, 1932. Her father was a Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe, who became a surgeon. Her mother was a homemaker. An only child, she was raised in Armonk, New York. At age 12, she submitted her first poems to The New Yorker.[2]
She received a bachelor's degree from Radcliffe College in 1954, a master's degree in library science from Simmons University in 1955, and a master's degree in English and American literature from Brandeis University in 1958.[2]
