It's probably why I'm a short story writer. I tend to remember things in the past in narrative form, in story form, and I grew up around people who told stories all the time.

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.