Chisa Hutchinson grew up in Newark, New Jersey, as a self-described “word nerd” with a strong interest — even as a child — in writing. What she never thought about was writing plays.

“We read stories and books in school, but it wasn’t until I went to [a nearby private] high school that I was exposed to plays,” said Hutchinson, who is serving as creative writer in residence and visiting associate professor of English at the University of Delaware this year.

“The stories I was writing were always dialogue-heavy, and when I first read a play, I knew I wanted to do that. I’m into the whole people-talking-to-people thing.”

Hutchinson, who has won numerous honors for her work, recently was recognized with the inaugural Thom Thomas Award, given in Thomas’ memory by the Dramatists Guild Fund.

She had never met the late playwright and book author, but all evening at the awards ceremony, she said, his friends and admirers approached her to share stories about him.

“He seems to have had such a positive impact on people,” Hutchinson said. “It made getting the award even more of an honor for me.”

After discovering her own interest in playwriting, Hutchinson went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from Vassar College and a master of fine arts degree from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Her involvement in theatre led to numerous roles as an actor, but she often was playing white characters that, she said, didn’t reflect her own experiences as an African American woman. She said she wanted to use her writing to expand the variety of roles available in plays and to address concerns important to the lives of people like herself.

“The main issue for me is to write for underrepresented people in a way that validates their experience and maybe highlights it for people who might not think about it otherwise,” Hutchinson said. “I also enjoy writing about young people.”

Her plays include She Like Girls, Sex on Sunday, The Subject, Dead & Breathing and The Wedding Gift. They have been performed in such venues as City Parks' Summerstage, the Lark, the National Black Theater, the Contemporary American Theater Festival, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Rattlestick Theater and Atlantic Theater Company.

Hutchinson has won a GLAAD Award, a Lilly Award, a New York Innovative Theatre Award and the Paul Green Award, among other honors. She has been a Lark Fellow, a Dramatists Guild Fellow, a resident at the William Inge Center for the Arts, a New York NeoFuturist and a staff writer for the Blue Man Group.

In addition to teaching at the University this academic year, she is a Humanitas Fellow and resident playwright at Second Stage Theater. This spring, Second Stage will perform her Somebody’s Daughter, which Hutchinson describes as a play about a young Chinese-American girl born into a family that wanted a boy.

This semester at UD, she’s teaching a basic playwriting class and a class focused on writing about race. In spring, she will again teach playwriting and professional writing.