Born in 1940 in Butte, Montana, Jack Weyland graduated from Billings High School and then Montana State University in Bozeman. Following his undergraduate degree, he served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in New York and Pennsylvania. After his mission, he went to Brigham Young University to complete a PhD in Physics.
While at BYU, he took a creative writing class that he dropped after the professor laughed at the idea of Weyland writing Mormon literature. But he was tenacious and while doing summer research at BYU, he took a creative writing correspondence course and decided to write a short story for The New Era. It was accepted. He wrote another one which was also accepted and then the third was rejected. After that he had a good rate of acceptance.
As a physics professor at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, he was on a nine month contract. He would look for research work to do at other schools during the summertime to provide for his family. Then he was called as a LDS bishop. This prevented him from leaving for three months every summer. So he really picked up the pace and wrote short stories to support the family during those three months. One of those short stories was "Charly."
After unsuccessful attempts with a screenplay and a play, Weyland set the goal of writing a novel. The result was Charly which contained parts of the short story by the same name. It was the beginning of an ever-growing market for Mormon literature. Since that time Weyland has continued to write, publishing over three dozen books and over fifty short stories. Weyland is a popular subject for interviews.
The novel Charly was turned into a motion picture in 2002. It was well received among Mormon audiences, most of whom had already read the book.
In 1993 Weyland began teaching at Ricks College which later became Brigham Young University-Idaho. He loves physics and has never considered quitting teaching to write full time. In 2005 Weyland retired.
He is married to Sherry and they are the parents of five children.
