Cameron Lee Cowan M.A. MFA is the author of several books, a political commentator, and observer of culture. He has a history in music, fashion, and theater.
I’m Cameron Lee Cowan; I’m originally from Denver via Northwest Arkansas. I started writing in 2005, writing essays and short stories. I have a vintage flair in much of my work. All the twists and turns on my journey through music, fashion, theater, and writing have provided the background for my writing. I’ve seen exciting people and interesting things, and I do my best to find ways to tell those everyday stories and try to leave my readers with something profound. Whether I’m writing about the world around us at The Cameron Journal or creating a novel, I try to make an observation and leave the reader to decide for themselves how they think or feel about it.
My first passion of politics and public policy has been a part of my life since I was in high school. My background is in political science and creative writing (shout out to the University of Northern Colorado, Norwich University, and Goddard College), and I've been involved in politics in some form most of my adult life.
I got my start in politics at the local level in Colorado with local organizations that lead to me working in the State Senate when I was 17 and then moving into media through magazines and terrestrial radio during college and the early stages of my career. In 2013, I revived my passion for fiction as a compliment to my work in media on the politics and public policy side of things.
My artistic journey has taken several interesting twists and turns. I started out as a musician, worked in politics, and ran magazines. For many artists, the creative call a singular one. For me, I had to really choose to do this. There were other paths available to me. I could have had a Ph.D. before I was 30 in my academic field. I could have pursued a corporate path.
Instead, I decided to create. One of my first memories of this was a childhood writing group. Remember that I could hardly articulate myself on paper at the time. From childhood, I knew that I wanted to write. At 12 years old, I could not form a coherent sentence in English. But I had much to say, and I wanted to write that down.
By 17, I wanted to write articles, take adventures and perhaps be an essayist. College robbed me of much writing time, and graduate school wasn’t much help either. During this time, I put my attention towards making the written word pay by freelancing and doing copywriting work. It was hard, and some of it didn’t pay well. However, the discipline of writing in that way is something that has served me well.
My favorite thing about writing is that through research, you can talk about almost anything. I like to explain things to people and try to make sense of the world. That is my hope for all my readers, is that you'll come away with something very much lacking in modern socio-political debate: context.
