Tobias Wolff was born in Alabama in 1945 and grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He received his B.A. at Oxford University and his M.A. at Stanford University, where he is currently the Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor in the Humanities. Tobias Wolff is the author of the novel Old School, and the novella The Barracks Thief; two memoirs, This Boy's Life and In Pharaoh's Army; and three collections of short stories, In the Garden of the North American Martyrs, Back in the World, and The Night in Question. He has served as the editor of Best American Short Stories, The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories, and A Doctor's Visit: The Short Stories of Anton Chekhov. Wolff's awards and honors include the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Saint Lawrence Award for fiction,  the Rea Award for Excellence in the Short Story, and the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Stanford, CA with his wife Catherine and their three children.