Maddox Pennington

Maddox Pennington (Playwright, Director) is a nonbinary writer, professor, and stand-up comic; a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, they are originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma.

They received an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Columbia University, and their debut bibliomemoir, A Girl Walks Into a Book: What the Brontës Taught Me About Life, Love, and Women’s Work was published by Hachette Books in 2017.

They moved to Los Angeles in 2021 to teach college writing at the University of Southern California after previously teaching at American University, Columbia University, SUNY Empire State and Touro College.

Their work explores gender, sexuality, mental health, belonging, and frequently invokes magical realism.They produced and directed their nonbinary rom-com Love Chicken in its premiere at the 2022 Hollywood Fringe Festival, where it was nominated for Best Comedy and won a Producer’s Encore Award and the Theatre Theater Podcast Playwright Award. Other works that have received readings in LA include Embers Borne West, with MovingArts MADLab, and Central Standard Time, which was excerpted for the Autry Museum of the American West’s Native Voices Short Play Festival and will be featured in the New Play Retreat in June 2023. They’re producing and directing their play ANNEX for the 2023 Hollywood Fringe Festival. 

Their teaching interests include LGBTQ topics, Native Studies and Disability Studies, and texts on empathy, monstrosity and redemption.