Cheri L. Maxson - Playwright

Cheri Maxson is a playwright, writing mentor, novelist, poet, essayist and teacher. For her “real world” job she teaches English and two college courses to high school seniors along with ninth grade English in southwestern New York. She is an adjunct writing instructor for both Syracuse University and the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford where she’s taught Dramatic Writing, Academic Writing, Introduction to Poetry Writing and Introduction to Creative Nonfiction Writing.  Maxson has been the Drama Club advisor/director at her high school for over 11 years and is also the middle grades newspaper advisor.

She has a B.S. in Education and a B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh and a Masters of Fine Arts in Writing from Spalding University.  She was bitten by the theatre bug in high school and has worked behind the curtains writing, directing, producing and costuming student actors for over 30 years.  She’s written, directed and staged over a dozen of her own plays and directed and produced more than 40 others.

Currently, she has professionally published four plays along with some poetry and essays in literary journals and anthologies. Maxson published “Murder at the Malt Shop” with Pioneer Drama Service. The 1950s themed play won the 2016 Shubert Fendrich Memorial Playwriting Award. “The Scandalous Scheme at the Sweet Shop” is a 1920s melodrama she published with Brooklyn Publishers.

Maxson's hobbies are attending theatre productions, writing in her meager spare time, directing and singing in her local community choir, painting, scrapbooking, traveling, and reading. She enjoys life in the hills and forests of northwestern Pennsylvania, just across the border of New York with her husband, Rob, and her daughter Jenna.