Cheryl Miller Thurston | About Our Authors

Cheryl Miller Thurston is the president, founder and editor of Cottonwood Press, Inc., which she started in 1986 with a $2000 loan from a friend. Before that she was an English teacher for 13 years, grades seven through university level. She grew up on a cantaloupe and watermelon farm in La Junta, Colorado, and now lives in Loveland, Colorado, with her husband and their pampered cats, Cassie and Sophie.

Thurston has written many books for teachers, as well as magazine articles, plays and musical shows. She received the Pacific Northwest Writers’ Conference Children’s Play Award for Change of Heart, and was a Colorado Book Award finalist for her book of poetry, Hide Your Ex-Lax Under the Wheaties.

In 1997, she created Moonlighting Teachers, a troupe of teachers, former teachers, counselors and others who sing and act their way through hilarious shows that touch just about every facet of the world of education. Thurston is also well-known in the accordion world as the founder of Closet Accordion Players of America—an organization dedicated to improving the image of the accordion.

With all her endeavors—Cottonwood Press, Moonlighting Teachers and Closet Accordion Players of America—Thurston specializes in using humor. She says, “I take humor very seriously. Humor can be a wonderful and powerful tool for education, change, communication and understanding.”

Cheryl Thurston's blog can be found at www.scattershot.typepad.com

Attitude!