Josh Weil was born in the Blue Ridge Mountains of rural Virginia, received his MFA from Columbia University, and is currently the writer-in-residence at Gilman School in Baltimore.  Since Columbia University, Weil has received a Fulbright grant, a Writer’s Center Emerging Writer Fellowship, the Dana Award in Portfolio, and fellowships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences. In 2009, he was acknowledged with the Tickner Fellow.

Weil returned to Virginia to write his first book, The New Valley (Grove, 2009), which was New York Times Editors Choice selection, honored with the “5 Under 35” Award from the National Book Foundation, and won the 2010 New Writers Award from the Great Lakes Colleges Association.  Weil’s short fiction has appeared in Granta, American Short Fiction, Narrative, and Glimmer Train, among other journals; he has written non-fiction for The New York Times, Granta Online, and Poets & Writers.

Weil is slated to read at Gemini Ink on Friday, Feb. 26 at 6:30pm and will also conduct the class, Uncharted Territory: Exploring Novellas on Saturday, Feb. 27.  In the class, participants will learn what is a novella and, what can it accomplish that’s different from what a short story or novel can accomplish.

Gemini Ink intern Angelia Potter interviews Weil about his writing process and what’s inspired him.

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