About Josh Braff
A little bio if you will. In first person. I grew up in South Orange, New Jersey, and went to Columbia High School. I graduated from NYU in ’91 with a BS in Education. In 1995 I entered St. Mary’s College of California. There I received an MFA in creative writing/fiction. I published three short stories during this time in national literary journals before I wrote a first novel called Digging Suburbia. I was never able to sell it but acquired my first literary agent with the book. I wrote The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green after my son turned 6 months old. The book would have three publishing offers right after I finished it two years later. I went with Algonquin Books because of their reputation as a great press and I’ve never been disappointed. I started writing Peep Show after hearing a story about a man who was an orthodox Jew, living in Long Island, who commuted to Times Square to run peep houses. The book turned out to be a complex ride about familial relationships and the tangles that disenchantment and history and self-absorption can cause. I think it’s a pretty special book. I live in Oakland California with my wife of fifteen years and my two children, Henry and Ella. I love the game of baseball and played until recently when I decided sliding hard into bases was going to really start hurting. So I play softball now but slid so hard into third base last August that I may have torn my right meniscus. Golf anyone? I also love acrylic/oil painting in the Color Field genre. I’m most inspired by the painters, Barnett Newman, Dan Christensen, Kenneth Noland and Mark Rothko. I’m currently working on my third novel. No hints yet.