I try to help people become the best possible editors of their own work, to help them become conscious of the things they do well, of the things they need to look at again, of the wells of material they have not even begun to dip their buckets into.

This Boy's Life (1989) concerns itself with the author's adolescence in Seattle and then Newhalem a remote company town in the North Cascade mountains of Washington State. In the Garden of the North American Martyrs (1981) a collection of short stories. Wolff however repudiates such claims.

He is known for his memoirs particularly This Boy's Life (1989) and his short stories. He has also written two novels.