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Born in 1922 in Pe Ell, Washington, W. Gordon Mauermann graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in education. Shortly thereafter, he began his teaching career at Bellingham High School. In the ensuing years, he taught English and journalism at West Seattle High School, Roosevelt High School, and Queen Anne High School where he was head of the English Department. As the beneficiary of a Fulbright teachers exchange award, he taught in Manchester, England from 1964 to 1965. Mauermann retired from the Seattle Public Schools in 1982. He died in 1984.

While teaching, Mauermann pursued his interest in drama. He was co-founder of Theatre Northwest, a membership organization devoted to the support and sponsorship of original drama. Theatre Northwest staged readings of works by playwrights from all over the nation until the organization dissolved in 1965. In 1958 he received a John Hay Whitney Fellowship in the Humanities to study playwriting at Yale University for year. He wrote numerous plays; his published works include: "A Cup of Kindness," "Just Us Girls," "End of the Season," "Fair Today," and "I Say Three Ships." He also worked on several celebrity memoirs which were not published.

Mauermann married Mary Anne Hughes in 1946. An author of short stories and juvenile fiction, Mary Anne Mauermann has also taught writing classes at Seattle Central community College, Shoreline Community College, Lake Washington Vocational Technical Institute and, currently (1992), at Bellevue Community College. She is the daughter of Glenn Hughes, playwright and former Director of the UW School of Drama.

Although they were active in such groups as the Free Lances (a Seattle association of professional writers), the Mauermanns were best known as teachers of creative writing. For years, they were the only professional writing teachers in the Seattle area. Gordon Mauermann was founder and director of the Capitol Hill Playwriting Workshop, which offered weekly classes, readings, and critiques of student work. Classes were taught out of the Mauermanns' home and students included Ralph Bushnell Potts and Molly Cone. At this time Mary Anne Mauermann was also teaching classes in short story and novel writing out of their home.

In 1969 the Mauermanns began the Writing Shop, a professional writing school which offered classes on the writing of plays, short stories, novels, and articles until it closed in 1983. The school also provided professional critiques of manuscripts. The popularity of their classes was so overwhelming it soon necessitated renting classroom space. Many of the Writing Shop students, such as Joan Dash and Mary Morgan, became professional writers.

From the early 1960s Gordon and Mary Anne Mauermann both were active in the Pacific Northwest writers Conference, a non-profit literary organization. The largest conference of its kind in the country, the pacific Northwest writers Conference brings together writers, editors, critics and teachers in an annual three-day summer conference of workshops, panels, seminars on various aspects of writing, contests and awards. Gordon Mauermann often judged the playwriting contest, led workshops, and served on various panels. He was a trustee from 1964 to 1978 and again in the 1980s. He was president of the Conference from 1965-66 and in 1984. Mary Anne Mauermann was program chairman in the early 1960s, contest chairman for two years, and a trustee from 1974-81. .