Tobias Wolff was born on June 19, 1945 in Birmingham, Alabama. He is the second son of Arthur Samuels Wolff and Rosemary Loftus Wolff. At the age of five, Tobias faced a family breakup in which he and his mother separated from his father and older brother, Geoffrey, due to the instability his father maintained in his family life. Wolff and his mother moved constantly. They first lived in Florida, then moved to Utah in 1955 and finally settled in the Pacific Northwest, where her mother remarried a troubled man, Dwight Hansen. They lived in Newhalem, Washington with Hansen and his three children. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Wolff attended Concrete High School until he left for the Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, where he falsified his references to get accepted. He attended Hill School for a year but did not graduate and instead ended up joining the Army for four years. Wolff's family also did not reunite until 1961, when he saw his older brother and father after eleven years. From 1964 to 1968, Wolff served in the U.S. Army Special Forces, where he was assigned to Vietnam. After serving in those years, Wolff went to England and enrolled at Oxford University. In 1972, he earned a bachelor's degree from Oxford and in 1975, he earned a master's degree from Oxford. Returning to America, he worked first as a reporter for the Washington Post, then in various restaurants in California. In 1975 he married Catherine Dolores Spohn, a teacher and social worker. They later had two sons and a daughter; Michael, Patrick and Mary Elizabeth. Wolff enrolled at Stanford University the same year and soon earned a master's degree from Stanford in 1978. While at Stanford, he met and became friends with other writers, including Raymond Carver. During this period he supported himself by teaching. In addition to short stories, Tobias Wolff has published a short story, The Barracks Thief (1984), and a memoir, This Boy's Life (1989). He has also edited short story anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories (1994). While pursuing writing, Wolff taught creative writing at Goddard College and Arizona State University. He currently lives with his family in upstate New York and teaches at Syracuse University. Wolff also influenced countless people, including the famous David Sedaris, an American comedian and author. Sedaris claims to be Wolff's "biggest fan" as he has read every word Wolff ever wrote. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay Wolff's work has won numerous literary awards. He received a Wallace Stegner Scholarship in 1975 to study creative writing at Stanford University and has won creative writing grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. Wolff received the 1985 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for The Barracks Thief and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. His This Boy's Life: A Memoir won the Los Angeles Times biography award. He also received a Whiting Foundation Award (1990), a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Award (1994), and a Lyndhurst Foundation Award. (1994).