Olivia Gentile

Olivia Gentile is the author of Life List: A Woman’s Quest for the World’s Most Amazing Birds, a biography of housewife, naturalist, and adventurer Phoebe Snetsinger.

She began her career as a staff writer for The Rutland (Vt.) Herald and The Hartford Courant. She now writes for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, The Tampa Bay Times, and many other publications. She has reported from all over the United States and from India, Kenya, and Peru.

After growing up in Washington, D.C., she earned a bachelor’s degree in Social Studies from Harvard and a Master of Fine Arts in nonfiction writing from Columbia. She was a fellow at the MacDowell Colony.

She lives with her husband, daughter, and dog in Hanover, New Hampshire, just off the Appalachian Trail. She volunteers as a crisis counselor for victims of gender-based violence.