Joshua Furst's
critically acclaimed book of stories, Short People, was described by the Miami Herald
as "a near magical collection." The Los Angeles Times called it "Startling . . . a thoughtful if disturbing portrait of what it means
to be a child. Or, more to the point, what it means to be human."
And the Times of London said "Any one of these stories is enough
to break your heart. . . . Joshua Furst's debut is both enjoyable and
important." His work has been published in The Chicago Tribune,
Conjunctions, Five Chapters and The Crab Orchard Review
among other places.
Among the awards and grants
he has received are a 2001-2002 James Michener-Paul Engle Fellowship
from the James Michener Foundation/Copernicus Society of America, a
1997 Chicago Tribune Nelson Algren Award for his short story "Red Lobster," and fellowships from The MacDowell Colony and ArtOmi/Ledig
House. He was a finalist for the 1992 Fringe First award at the Edinburgh
Fringe Festival and a runner up in the 2001 Playboy College Fiction
Contest.
From 1993 through 1998,
he was an active participant in the New York alternative theatre scene.
Among other accomplishments in this field, he helped organize and run
Nada Theatre's 1995 Obie award winning Faust Festival and was one
of the producers of the 1998 New York RAT conference which brought experimental
theatre artists from across the United States together for a week of
performance and symposia. His plays include Whimper, Myn
and The Ellipse and Other Shapes. They have been produced by
numerous theatres, both in the United States and abroad, including PS122,
Adobe Theatre Company, Cucaracha Theatre Company, HERE, The Demarco
European Art Foundation, and Annex Theatre in Seattle.
He studied as an undergraduate
at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, receiving a BFA in
Dramatic Writing in 1993 and did graduate work at The University of
Iowa Writers' Workshop, from which he received an MFA with Honors in
2001.
Joshua Furst lives in
New York City, and teaches fiction and playwriting at The Pratt Institute.