BA, English, Hiram College
Cleveland native Scott Lax has taught creative writing classes and specialized in Screenwriting at CIA since Spring Semester 2016. He is a novelist, short story writer, journalist, producer, screenwriter, and playwright. Scott is a recipient of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Bernard J. O'Keefe Scholarship in Nonfiction, the Sewanee Writers Conference Walter E. Dakin Fellowship in Fiction, six journalism awards, and four first-place film festival producer’s awards.
Between 1992 and 2011, Lax was a monthly magazine columnist, as well as an essayist, book critic, and features writer for Cleveland Magazine and other print and online journals, including The [Cleveland] Plain Dealer, The Father Life and The Norwegian American. He has also written for Comedy Central, ESPN, Major League Baseball’s Cleveland Guardians, and many other businesses, organizations, and private clients.
The Denver Post called Scott's first novel, The Year That Trembled (1998, Paul S. Eriksson, Publisher, 1st edition; 2013, Gray & Co., Publishers, 2nd edition) “powerful” and named it one of the year’s "milestones in fiction." Scott then produced the feature film version, also called The Year That Trembled (2002, Novel City Pictures). The Boston Herald called the movie “memorable and touching” and Lax was named Midwest Filmmaker of the Year at the Cleveland International Film Festival. His two-act play adaptation of the novel was first produced at University School in Cleveland in 2003 and 2013. He later rewrote and retitled the play 1970, which made its World Premiere in September and October 2023 at the Chagrin Valley Little Theatre.
Scott’s second novel, Vengeance Follows (2013, Gray & Co., Publishers), was called "A minor masterpiece of suspense and human nature," by the Midwest Book Review. As of 2024, Scott has adapted Vengeance Follows as screenplay and is in development on the feature film.
A professional drummer since the age of 13, Scott has performed with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Bo Diddley, among musicians regionally and nationally. For more about information, please visit scottlax.com.
