Writer and senior professor of practice Scott Lax is in his tenth year at the Cleveland Institute of Art, where he teaches writing, specializing in screenwriting. In April 2025, Scott became the recipient of the Dan Tranberg Award for Teaching Excellence.

A graduate in English from Hiram College, Scott has been 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 for essays, columns, and features; and four first place film festival awards, including winning Midwest Filmmaker of the Year at the Cleveland International Film Festival in 2002.

Scott received a Certificate of Congratulations from the City of Cleveland for his body of work in 2002 and was inducted into the Chagrin Falls High School Achievement Hall of Fame in 2016.

The Denver Post called Scott's first novel The Year That Trembled "powerful" and one of the year's "milestones in fiction." The Boston Herald called the feature film that he produced, based on that novel, "memorable and touching."

He adapted the novel into a two-act stage play, called 1970, which ran for two weeks in the fall of 2023 at the Chagrin Valley Little Theatre. Before that, it was produced under the name The Year That Trembled at Cleveland's University School in 2003 and 2013.

Of his second novel, Vengeance Follows, which Lax adapted as a screenplay, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Ron Powers wrote, "Mesmerizing and masterful … gets inside the head of a lethal sociopath while maintaining a loving evocation of a quiet Ohio town with a Richard Russo-like respect for the human soul." The Midwest Book Review called the novel "a minor masterpiece of suspense and human nature and pronounced him, "A master wordsmith of the first order."

Scott has since adapted Vengeance Follows as a screenplay and is producing a feature film version of his novel with Rob Mayes, who will also direct and play the lead role. The film is currently in development.

Scott has also written for many organizations such as Comedy Central, ESPN, and Major League Baseball's Cleveland Guardians, where he also acted as a writing coach. He is a professional speaker and has worked as a speech writer for corporate, community, and social justice leaders.

A professional drummer since the age of 13, Lax has performed with Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Bo Diddley, among many musicians locally and nationally. – November 1, 2025