Tapping that 'Memory Vein'

 

“Memory is funny. Once you hit a vein the problem is not how to remember but how to control the flow.”– Tobias Wolff

Born in Birmingham, AL on this date in 1945, Wolff is both a writer and teacher. Among his most honored writings are the memoirs This Boy's Life and In Pharaoh's Army, and his short story The Barracks Thief, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. He has had three other short stories win the coveted O. Henry Award, and his lifetime body of work was honored with a National Medal of Arts award in 2015.

 

A Vietnam veteran (Special Forces), he completed several tours of duty there before heading back to school to study creative writing and ultimately beginning his award-winning writing career.  Wolff said he had wanted to be a writer since age 14 but work and then the military always got in the way.  He has used many of his life experiences in his writing and is especially noted for the autobiographical elements in his stories -- tapping that memory vein, if you will.

Wolff started teaching creative writing in the late 1980s, first at Syracuse and then at Stanford. Dozens of successful writers can now trace their beginnings to classes and mentoring provided by Wolff, who has counseled and taught them in all genres. His own favorite genre, he said, is the short story.

 

“Everything has to be pulling weight in a short story for it to be really of the first order.”