Tobias Wolff - "The Benefit of the Doubt"

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2008/04/01/Tobias_Wolff_in_Conversation

Acclaimed author Tobias Wolff reads an excerpt from his short story, "The Benefit of the Doubt."

-----

Tobias Wolff is a contemporary master of short fiction, conjuring a full emotional range within the form's compression. His widely-anthologized stories have received three O. Henry Awards and are collected in Back in the World, In the Garden of the North American Martyrs, The Night in Question, and the recent Our Story Begins.

The protagonists of Wolff's short stories often struggle with moral quandaries, unable to reconcile what they know to be true with what they feel to be true. Wolff explores similarly existential themes in his childhood memoir This Boy's Life and In Pharoah's Army, the story of his reluctant Vietnam service.

While he is best known for his short stories and memoirs, Wolff is also the author of the PEN/Faulkner award-winning novella The Barracks Thief and novels including Old School. He currently teaches creative writing at Stanford University - City Arts and Lectures

Tobias Wolff is the Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University, where he directed the creative writing program from 2000 to 2002.

His books include a novel, The Barracks Thief; two memoirs, This Boy's Life and In Pharaoh's Army; and three collections of short stories, most recently The Night in Question. He has also edited several collections of short stories.

His work appears regularly in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's, and other magazines and literary journals. Among his special interests are American literature, the development of the short story, autobiography, and Chekhov.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• short
• story
• stories
• reading
• writers
• writing
• author
• novelists
• books
• dramatic
• funny
• crime
• criminals
• stealing
• foratv
• fora.tv
• fora
• tv

[Scholargypsies]

May I post this again: it is not SPAM.

How disappointing this is. Somebody below has written: "Words create vivid colorful mental image. Facinating." Well, I am not sure. Wolf is technically very good, but where is the blood? Wolf seems a man with a lot of time on his hands, who spends ages crafting a piece, but it is so well cratfed that it does not reach the heart. It is so well crafted that all the pulse and blood and gore are missi

[bboycrashin]

just finished reading this boys life

[AngryScissor]

@gr1msh33per59 If you don't like good books, don't read them.

[greggymcgurks]

@gr1msh33per59 Maybe you don't, but a lot of people do.

[princess11222]

@bboycrashin I haven't read the book but This Boy's Life is one of the greatest movies ever.

[dwhubenak]

@gr1msh33per59 Uh, WTF are you doing watching this video for then?

[dwhubenak]

@gr1msh33per59 You are high...

[gr1msh33per59]

His books are so fucking boring, they have no plot and they're just dumb. No one cares about his stupid life story, he's boring and uninteresting!!

[Molokai17]

wet steamy people