Tobias Wolff — American Writer born on June 19, 1945,

Tobias Jonathan Ansell Wolff is an American author. He is known for his memoirs, particularly This Boy's Life and In Pharaoh's Army. He has also written two novels, including The Barracks Thief, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and an array of short stories... (wikipedia)

I teach one semester a year, and this year I'm just teaching one course during that semester, a writing workshop for older students in their late 20s and early 30s, people in our graduate program who are already working on a manuscript and trying to bring it to completion.
When I was about 14 or 15 I decided to become a writer and never for a moment since have I wanted to do anything else.
Memory is funny. Once you hit a vein the problem is not how to remember but how to control the flow.
The short story, on the other hand, is the perfect American form.
Everything has to be pulling weight in a short story for it to be really of the first order.