George Wolfe graduated from the University of Mississippi and then from the Naval Officer Training Command in Newport RI. He was assigned to a destroyer that was later homeported in Japan for two years. Aboard ship, Wolfe served as Weapons Department Head and Nuclear Weapons Officer, overseeing a substantial amount of gunfire support for the Army and Marines in Vietnam. Following a year spent hitchhiking in Europe and the Middle East, Wolfe entered the English graduate program at UNC Chapel Hill, earned a doctorate, and took a position at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, where he taught for many years and received the Burnum Distinguished Faculty Award. He was instrumental in writing the scripts and securing funding for award winning PBS documentary films on Faulkner, Melville, the GI Bill and Marcel Proust. He is married to the former Suzanne Rau, founding editor of Alabama Heritage Magazine.