The Stories Of Tobias Wolff by Tobias Wolff

Woods Professorship in the School of Humanities and Sciences. He taught in the creative writing program at Syracuse University from 1980–1997, after which he returned to Stanford, where he now holds the Ward W. In 1975, he was awarded a Wallace Stegner Fellowship by Stanford University, where he remained as a lecturer for two years. Oxford University came next, followed by stints as a reporter, a waiter, a night watchman, and a high-school teacher. To get in, he forged his own letters of recommendation two years later, he was asked to leave-for failing math and other crimes, among them “eating potato chips while leaning out the window.” In 1990, the Hill School granted him his degree (class of ’64), but only after the headmaster made sure to read a selection of Wolff’s fictitious letters of recommendation to that year’s commencement audience.Īfter school, Wolff briefly worked on a ship, and in 1964 volunteered for the army. Standing by a wall adorned with family photographs, Wolff produced a galley of the novel, noting that the cover featured a photo of the dining hall at the Hill School, where Wolff had been a student.

He had just returned from ten months in Rome, where he finished work on his eighth book, Old School. This interview took place in the summer of 2003, at Tobias Wolff’s home in northern California. Interviewed by Jack Livings Issue 171, Fall 2004

The Stories Of Tobias Wolff by Tobias Wolff