Sophie Powell was born in 1980, and split her time growing up between London and a sheep farm in the Brecon Beacons in Wales. She graduated in Classics from Trinity College, Cambridge University, where she was a junior scholar, and has an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from New York University, where she had a fellowship.

She is the author of the novel The Mushroom Man (Putnam Penguin) which received glowing reviews, including one from the New York Times Book Review, and which has been translated into several languages. She has also published short stories and creative nonfiction. Most recently, she wrote the personal essay "Happily Ever After" for the anthology Behind The Bedroom Door forthcoming with Bantam in '08. Fellow contributors include Susan Cheever, Fay Weldon, Lauren Slater, and Hope Edelman. She is currently working on a new novel, Into the Lake, as well as a children’s book.

Sophie lives in Boston with her husband, Christian, where she teaches creative writing at Boston College. Previously she has taught at New York University, Georgetown University, George Washington University and with the Lesley Seminars. She is also assistant director of Abroad Writers’ Conferences.

Sophie is represented by Faye Bender at the Faye Bender Literary Agency in New York.