Born in 1945 in Alabama, Wolff has been regarded as the master of memoir and short stories. His best known work, This Boy's Life, recounts the story of his early childhood years in the Northwest and was the basis for a 1993 motion picture starring Robert DeNiro and Leonardo DiCaprio. A three-time winner of the O. Henry Award, Tobias Wolff is celebrated for his collections of short stories, novels, and memoirs. Wolff's second collection of short stories, Back in the World (1985), was hailed as a sensitive work of fiction focusing primarily on the experiences of returning Vietnam veterans. In literary circles, Wolff is revered as much as a teacher as he is as a writer. After completing a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University, Wolff served as the Jones Lecturer in Creative Writing at that institution (1975-1978). He later spent 17 years leading the Creative Writing Program at Syracuse University (1980-97). In 1997, he returned to Stanford where he currently resides and teaches.