Tobias Wolff

Tobias Wolff was born to Rosemary and Arthur Wolff in 1945 and was raised Catholic, though later in life he learned that his father had Jewish heritage. His parents separated when Wolff was five years old and his elder brother Geoffrey was 12. Wolff lived with his mother in a variety of places, including Seattle, where she remarried. During this time, his father and brother lived on the East Coast, and Wolff had little contact with them. Wolff attended high school near Seattle and then applied to and was accepted by The Hill School, located outside Philadelphia. However, Wolff forged his transcripts and recommendation letters and was later expelled by the school. He was in the army from 1964 to 1968 and served in the Vietnam War. This experience influenced him to write his 1984 novella The Barracks Thief, which earned the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. After his time in the army, Wolff earned an English degree from the University of Oxford in 1972 and an MA in Creative Writing at Stanford in 1975. Wolff then taught at Syracuse University from 1980 to 1997  and published his first short story collection in 1981, followed by two more in 1985 and 1997. In 1997, Wolff transferred to Stanford University and continues to teach there. Wolff chronicled his early life in This Boy’s Life (1989), In Pharaoh’s Army (1994), and Old School (2003). His most recent short story collection was published in 2008. Wolff received the Rea Award for the Short Story and won the O. Henry Award three times. Wolff is married with three children and currently lives in California.