Joe Weisberg

Joseph Weisberg is an American television writer and producer whose most well-known credit was the critically-acclaimed Cold War series "The Americans" (FX 2013- ), a period thriller about two married Soviet spies living in 1980s Washington DC, whose identities are unknown to their FBI agent neighbor and their two children. The series drew extensively on Weisberg's own history as an employee of the CIA, where he worked between the years of 1990 and 1994. His other writing and producing credits included the television series "Damages" (FX 2007-2012) and "Falling Skies" (TNT 2011- ).

Weisberg grew up in a liberal Jewish Chicago household and studied at Yale University, where his interest in the political climate of the time and the novels of John Le Carre led to his incorporating Russian Studies into his education. Graduating in 1987, he shortly thereafter moved to Washington D.C. and began working for the CIA. In total, his career with the Agency would last for only three years; taking a leave of absence to care for his terminally ill father in 1993, he decided not to return following Mr Weisberg Sr.'s death the following year. Instead, Weisberg moved to New York to attempt a career in writing, supplementing his income by teaching. Prior to his success as a television writer, he published the novels 10th Grade (2002) and An Ordinary Spy (2008).