Josh Wagner is an American novelist and playwright based primarily in Missoula, Montana. He also writes graphic novels, short stories, and screenplays. His style is heavily influenced by metafiction, folk tales, and magical realism.Wagner's writing career began somewhere around the age of six when he paraphrased the plot from Empire Strikes Back and called it his own. Managing to narrowly avoid copyright litigation, this wake-up call put Josh on the straight and narrow, and he decided to try writing original works. His first atrocious novels, penned clandestinely during class in Middle School, still live in a box somewhere--hundreds of pages hand-written in pencil.In 2005 Josh quit his job, bought a trailer, grabbed his pup and moved to New Mexico where he lived in the desert working on a novel he will probably never finish. As he hid from the sun and scribbled out absurd ideas on tiny blue notebooks, birds of prey pecked at his crumbs and took flight from approaching coyotes. There the young author talked his ideas over with a cactus and both agreed that artists are required by cosmic law to leap off of a cliff (metaphorical or otherwise) at least once every few years.Since then he has traveled the world extensively, visiting India, Japan, Thailand, Morocco and nearly every European country. His works include three novels ("Periphery Stowe", "Deadwind Sea", "Smashing Laptops"), several stage plays ("Salep & Silk" and the collection "Bleached Bones"), and graphic novels ("Fiction Clemens", "Sky Pirates of Neo Terra").A new novel is on the way for the fall of 2014, published by Asymmetrical Press.Wagner is currently collaborating with artist Theo Ellsworth on an illustrated book called "Mystery Mark."