Penny Jackson

Penny Jackson is a playwright, screenwriter, and novelist who lives in New York City. She has written and produced two award-winning short films: "My Dinner with Schwartzey" and "Greetings from Sarajevo," both adapted from her two published short stories. "My Dinner with Schwartzey" has been presented around the world. The film has received over 30 nominations and 24 awards. "Greetings from Sarajevo" had its world premiere at YoFi Festival in Yonkers, November 2020, and has won several awards, including seven for best screenwriting.

Selected plays include The Battles of Richmond Hill, I Know What Boys Want, Safe, Louise in Charlestown, and Bitten. Her play, I Know What Boys Want, was Theater Is Easy’s Best Bet for Off Broadway Theater, chosen as one of the best plays in an Off Broadway production theater by NY Theater, and a bestselling play in 2014 for Indie Theater Now.

Safe, which won best new play at the Planet Connections Theater Festivity in New York City, was produced at the Edinburgh Fringe at the Space/North Bridge Theater. This fall there was a new production of SAFE at The Theater at The 14th Street Y. The Battles of Richmond Hill was awarded best play at The Southwest Theater Productions Playwright Competition in Austin, Texas. The play is published by Next Stages Press.

Applause Theatre chose Jackson’s play Before as one of the best American short plays in 2016. Before won first prize in the gun control play competition sponsored by The University of Illinois-Urbana, and was featured in Necessary Exposure, an exhibit at Dixon Place Theater focusing on female playwrights.

Jackson’s novel, "Becoming the Butlers", published by Bantam Books, was chosen as one of the best novels for young adults by The New York Public Library and was optioned for film by Warner Brothers.

Her short stories are published in literary magazines in The United States, England, Ireland and Scotland. Her short story collection, L.A. Child, published by Untreed Reads, features the title story that won a Pushcart Prize for best story in a literary magazine.

Awards include The Elizabeth Janeway Prize for writing from Barnard College, a Mirrelieis Fellowship for writing from Stanford University, and a MacDowell Colony Fellowship. She is a proud member of The Dramatists Guild, The League of Professional Theatre Women, and The International Center of Women Playwrights.