Max Apple (born October 22, 1941) is an American short story writer, novelist, and professor at The University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Apple was born to a Jewish family in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and received his B.A. (1963) and Ph.D (1970) from the University of Michigan. Apple taught creative writing at Rice University in Houston, Texas, for 29 years, where he held the Fox Chair in English. After retiring from Rice University, Apple moved to Philadelphia, where he teaches at The University of Pennsylvania. Along with his published novels and short story collections, he wrote the screenplays for Smokey Bites the Dust, The Air Up There, and Roommates (based on his 1994 biography Roommates: My Grandfather's Story). Max's son is the non-fiction writer Sam Apple.