Hello SOOP Readers!

I’m coming to you this time with a bit of a heavy heart. My father passed on Martin Luther King Day (1-19-26) and I woke up to the news and my world has changed a bit. I had planned out this post beforehand and I wanted to add a special note about this moment in my life. However, I want to immediately shift focus to thinking about reading and technology. As I’m sure you’re aware, there is an ongoing debate online about “Are audiobooks really reading?” This debate is far more contentious than ebooks. I know that some people (myself included) feel better with a paper book. Children tend to prefer them and science tells us that it activates more areas of the brain. Those that love ebooks will extol its virtues (easier to read for those with low eye-sight, transportable, convenient) and those who love paper will shake their head. It just isn’t the same.

Audiobooks on the other hand are an entirely different format and delivery method. I’ve maintained the unpopular opinion that audiobooks don’t count as reading because you’re listening. I do understand that people love to put them on while they are driving or doing other things. Our relationship to text and audio is different. It uses different parts of the brain. It also activates a different relationship with the text. I’m not saying that anyone should stop buying audiobooks. I need to finally finish editing the two I want to release! I can’t deny the popularity and effectiveness of the format.

Audiobooks have set the publishing world on fire, and the expense in producing one usually means they are quality, especially if read by the author. I do feel like something is lost in an audio only experience. Back in the 19th century, in a world of tedious factory work and illiteracy, workers (or occasionally the company) would hire readers to sit and read newspapers and books to the workers while they worked. To some degree, audiobooks is almost like a return to the pre-writing oral storytelling traditions.

The greater point I want to make to everyone this month is that technology changes how we consume stories or information. People who were used to writing on scrolls lamented codex and books. Printed books were considered less than handwritten copies from previous times. Technology will continually change how we make and consume information.

What are your favorite ways to read (or listen) to books? Please let us know in the comments.

Happy reading during this frigid mid-winter!

Cameron Lee Cowan

VP of Brand and Creative

SOOPMedia

It’s getting colder outside, and this has caused Cameron to reflect on some things about writing and revisiting his relationship to writing. Hopefully, it will inspire you to do some writing!

Hello SOOP Authors!

I’ve been thinking about many things lately, but I’ve been mostly thinking about writing. It’s just because I had to write my monthly message, but also because I’ve been trying to write more of late. Things here at SOOP have been busy and often, I don’t get much time to write, especially as I have written 5 books and published 4 since 2019. It’s been a tremendous pace (although not as fast as others) and that has left the creative well a little dry. Recently, I’ve been looking at some of my work, and I’ve realized that some of my older projects have some issues. My writing voice has changed a lot since I worked on some of these! I’m also looking for different things now. I’m looking for richer descriptions. I’m also looking for expansive world creation.

However, that also makes it hard to get back into some of these projects. Some part of it is overwhelming amid limited time, but also the fact that I have changed. I also feel strongly that maybe now is not the time to write new books or jump into a new project. After having just published another book (America’s Lost Generation! Out now!) It might be time to take a break. There’s always a hangover getting a project out in the world, especially after dealing with the final details and doing the marketing and appearances required to promote the book, too. Once that is all done, there’s a bit of exhaustion, and you’re just sort of “over it.” I’m impressed by those creatives who dive right back into writing after a book coming out. I thought I was one of them, but that may not be the best rhythm for me. And that’s what got me thinking about Winter (a great time to write!)

I really enjoying the passing seasons of the year. When I lived on a working farm, it was a delight to watch the crops get planted, fertilized, come up, be harvested, and watching the field lay fallow over the winter ready for the next year. I love city-living, but I do miss that aspect of rural life. It is a visual reminder of the shifting of the year as the Earth makes its way around the Sun. I feel like my writing life goes through something similar. Right now, it is winter. The fields are laying fallow, ready for next year’s planting.

What season is your writing in? Are you in Spring, just getting started and preparing for the harvest? Are you ready to harvest your work? Or are you laying fallow, ready for the renewal of spring? After 6 years, 5 books, and 1 MFA, I think I deserve a period of being fallow. Even though I’m in the summer of my life, even in the summer, we have a chilly day or a rainy day that keeps us inside and we wait for the next day when it sunny again and we can go outside. My message this holiday season is simple: think about where you are with your writing and what season you are experiencing right now. Move (and write!) in accordance with that season.

Happy Christmas everyone!

Cameron Lee Cowan

VP of Brand and Creative, SOOPMedia

Before you go….don’t forget to check our Holiday Bundles. We have put together the best of SOOP for you to check-out. We have great anthologies, fiction and more, so give these a look. Grab a bundle and keep a book for yourself and share the rest!

Medicine and Health

Politics

Anthologies

Memoir

Great Fiction

In my recent, second interview with Michael Stone for Created in the Image of God Michael—or “the trauma poster child,” as he calls himself with characteristic candor—brought both a lifetime of searing experience and the wisdom gleaned from walking through it, not around it.

Our first episode focused on trauma and its capacity to fragment the soul, pressing us to “integrate” our scattered selves. This Sunday, we traveled deeper into fear—how it freezes us, why neither the head nor law alone lead to freedom, and what it means to unthaw, individually and as a community. “Soften and slow down,” Michael said in closing. “We’re moving too fast.” In a world fixated on acceleration, this is both countercultural advice and a spiritual lifeline.

Let me share what I’m carrying forward from our latest conversation—because, in times like these, learning to thaw isn’t just self-help. It may be an act of collective survival.

1. The Freeze of Fear—And Why It’s Not a Failing

It’s easy—and tempting—to treat fear as the enemy, something to be vanquished or surgically removed. Our culture tells us to “feel the fear and do it anyway,” or to “choose love, not fear,” as if the two are oil and water. Michael, however, invites us to rethink. Fear, he insisted, isn’t a bug in the system. It’s intelligent. He calls it “an invitation,” a messenger from deep within that says, Here is where you are still alive, still capable of growth—provided you do not turn away.

But fear doesn’t just shout; it also freezes. Trauma, in Michael’s words, is often “unfinished past.” When we cannot run or fight, we lock down. We numb, avoid, dissociate, keep busy—or stay tightly wrapped in stories about what happened, rather than allowing ourselves simply to feel what needs honoring.

This freezing, he reminds us, is not weakness. It’s an ingenious adaptation, a spiritual intelligence developed over generations to protect us until we feel safe enough to thaw. If you know what it’s like to be “stuck” in anxiety, grief, or weariness, you’re not broken. You’re bearing a burden—sometimes ancestral—that kept you (or your people) alive. The invitation, once safety is available, is to come back to presence, to soften, and, eventually, to move again.

2. Unfreezing Individually—Returning to Fluidity and Presence

If freezing is a necessary first response, “thawing” is the art of living again. Michael described how, for decades, he lived as a victim—addicted, numbed, blaming external forces for his pain. The turning point came when he glimpsed, in a moment of deep reckoning, the possibility of taking responsibility—not for what happened, but for his own path forward.

How do we actually unfreeze? It begins, he said, with meeting fear, anger, or hatred with presence. “Can I love my fear? Can I hold and include even my hate, my shame?” Paradoxically, when we stop trying to cut out our unwanted feelings, they begin to shift. Not by force, but by being felt, heard, seen, and protected—ideally with another trusted soul. (Co-regulation, then self-regulation.)

This is where spiritual metaphor and somatic reality meet. Scripturally, Jesus promises “rivers of living water will flow from within.” That doesn’t happen, Michael pointed out, through willpower or positive thinking alone. Nor does “resilience” mean simply enduring more. True shift happens through body and soul—feeling the unfinished, slowing down, and letting the frozen places melt. “Integration,” Michael said, “shows up as more space, presence, stillness... Unintegrated past shows up as destiny—you’re bound to repeat the same things until you let yourself actually feel them.”

If you catch yourself intellectualizing, spinning in your head, unable to feel, that too is adaptation. The invitation: descend into the body, slow the pace, ask “What needs to move in me?”—and trust that what you find there is not an enemy, but carried wisdom awaiting release.

3. Thawing as Community—Can Groups Unfreeze, Too?

But what of us together? Michael’s metaphor travels: just as individuals get frozen, so do families, organizations, faith communities, even entire societies. If trauma is “unfinished past,” then many an institution is a collection of old wounds desperately warded off by custom, avoidance, or endless crisis management.

Can communities “do shadow work”? Michael’s answer: yes, but only through honest, brave process—what some call “truth and reconciliation,” others call “consultation,” and what all require is a slowing and softening at the collective level. We discussed South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was extraordinary not just for accountability but for its insistence on bearing witness—perpetrators and victims, telling the truth together, with the hope of new possibility.

Wherever groups establish real ritual and process for feeling what’s been suppressed—whether a faith tradition reforming after scandal, a family breaking destructive silence, or a neighborhood learning to listen across divides—something remarkable can happen. Michael stressed: integrity is not the same as morality. Integrity is wholeness. Communities, like people, can reclaim integrity by surfacing pain and letting presence—not just rules—do some of the repair.

In quieter ways, this is why community-building efforts rooted in slow, attentive dialogue are so powerful. When we gather not just to react but to be with what surfaces, we create shared safety to unfreeze and move toward a new kind of togetherness.

4. The Law, Justice, and the Heart—Is True Repair Possible?

Our dialogue returned, as it has before, to the question of law and justice. Law, Michael argued, is a stopgap—a necessity because we are not yet mature, nor whole. Where communities have not internalized “divine law” (the law written on the heart), external rules become necessary, and justice tends to mean punishment—sometimes necessary, but rarely truly transformative.

But is it possible to build systems, even families or communities, where repair means more than retribution? Michael’s experience—both personal and in his work—suggests it’s only possible if we do the real work first in ourselves. “Accountability must not come from moral superiority, but from seeing ourselves in the other,” he explains. “I could have done the same thing, given different circumstances. I’m not condoning wrong, but I’m honoring our shared fragility and capacity for harm and healing.”

Slow, embodied presence—not instant reaction—makes it possible to hold others accountable with both truth and the possibility of restoration. The process is messy; it takes more time (and courage) than snappy takes or blanket policies. But in that slowness, something like true justice—real repair—can begin to emerge.

5. The Lost Art of Pace—Softening and Slowing in a World That Rushes

After our winding dive through trauma, fear, law, and soul, Michael brought us back to something as simple as it is hard: pace. “My sermon of the day,” he said, “is to soften and slow down and pay attention.” The harder the world pulls us to rush— toward certainty, toward fixing, toward blame—the more vital it is that we choose a different speed. The spiritual path, indeed the path back to being human, requires resisting the tyranny of hyperactivity.

The challenge, however, isn’t only personal. If we are to build vibrant souls and vibrant communities, we must model and invite this pace collectively—allowing rooms, groups, and schedules where feelings can be felt, stories told slowly, truth spoken with trembling, and possibilities discovered in silence as well as speech. I for one struggle with this - I see the enormity of the task ahead, and I want to move fast. Go slow, and get their faster is a mantra that I’ve used frequently, but need to remember to use consistently.

And perhaps this week we can experiment with one act of softening. When fear or frustration wells up, pause. Notice what you feel. Breathe. Trust there may be wisdom in your freeze—and in your thaw. Gather with others, but go gently. The world is in a hurry; we don’t have to be.

Closing: Practicing the Thaw

The world (and your own soul) will give you a hundred reasons to stay defended, fast, and frozen. But what might become possible if we learned to soften together—if we allowed the unfinished past to melt within us and between us?

What flows when we invite presence where there’s been numbness, shared listening where there’s been accusation, and living water where the spirit feels dry?

Call to Action:
This week, slow your pace intentionally—at least once, in a tough moment. Notice where you freeze, and invite even a bit of warmth or breath there. Gather others not for debate but for shared presence. Share your stories—here or elsewhere—about what unfreezing (personally, or together) looks or feels like. And practice the lost art of going slow enough that the divine—and the full dignity of others—can enter the room.

Next Week: Sneak Peek—Mark Vernon

Don’t miss the next episode of Created in the Image of God, airing Sunday morning at 7:00 a.m. Central. Our guest will be Dr. Mark Vernon—acclaimed scholar, journalist, and explorer of Christian and Platonic wisdom. Together we’ll dive deep into the search for truth, goodness, and beauty—drawing on everyone from Dante to Frankenstein, Plato to pop culture vampires. If you’ve ever wondered whether spiritual wisdom can meet the challenges of modern collapse (and what zombies have to do with it), this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

—

How are you practicing the thaw in your life or community? Leave a comment and join the conversation below!

Hello SOOPMedia Authors!

Sorry I missed you in September. I got busy and didn’t have time to be in touch with you all. Welcome to fall! We aren’t getting many pretty leaves here in New England this fall on account of the hot temperatures and up and down weather. Most of the leaves just turned brown and gave up, falling straight to the ground.

This month, I’m really focusing on the next evolution of my writing. America’s Lost Generation is finally out after 5 years and I have two books in the queue. They are fiction (I’m a bit bored with non-fiction) and it is an entirely different mindset. I am taking a break before I dive into finalizing those manuscripts. And it has given me a moment to step back and look at my writing career and what is next for me. It is nice to not have a book in production right now, especially with how we are growing at SOOP. And there are things going on The Cameron Journal as well. It is time for me to evolve and grow into something new and different. Which gets into something I want to feature this month.

In the next section, I want to highlight something exceptional from a young man who is interning with me at The Cameron Journal. He wrote this below piece that I featured in The Cameron Journal Newsletter last week and although it is about me and my work, I found it inspiring to me because it reminded me of why I write. When you are writing, it is so vital to have a reason for doing it. The reason can be as mundane as “because I want to” but it can also be deeply healing, and it can also help us figure things out for ourselves. His little piece reminded me of my “why” for writing and I hope it has a similar effect on you.

Cameron Lee Cowan, M.A. MFA

VP of Brand & Creative

SOOP Media

Sometimes We Move in Silence

Written by Union Avenue.

The world does not forgive writers. Every word we commit to the page carries consequences—some visible, some unseen—and each one exposes us to judgment, scrutiny, and misunderstanding. For someone like Cameron Lee Cowan, whose thoughts move through The Cameron Journal, the stakes are immediate: essays, reflections, and critiques are archived, parsed, debated, and misread. The Journal is both sanctuary and arena, a space where human error is unavoidable, the limits of knowledge are exposed, and yet the act of writing itself remains vital. Even here, in a medium designed for reflection, every sentence is a negotiation with the unforgiving world: with readers, with those we love, and with ourselves.

Every time a writer writes, something is lost. Time, certainty, the illusion that life is under control—even relationships fray under the pressure of observation and expression. Cameron’s work illustrates this truth: the clarity he seeks in prose demands engagement, reflection, and risk. Yet none of this loss compares to the catharsis of the act itself. To write is to place a wound on the page, to expose the tender underside of thought, to name the things we cannot say aloud. And in doing so, the writer finds a strange liberation: a release that the world, in its stasis, cannot offer. The world continues on as though nothing has changed—people walk past, mornings arrive, the wind shifts, and yet the essays remain. Stand still, life moves forward, indifferent, while the page absorbs what the world will not.

There is a constant game of blame: with the world, with those we love, with ourselves. Every sentence contains a hint of accusation, every paragraph a quiet negotiation with guilt and desire. In the Journal, Cameron’s writing reflects this tension: each piece is aware of its own fragility, each reflection a balancing act between accountability and the impossibility of omniscience. And still, the words are written. Because to write is to wrestle with imperfection in the only way that might matter: publicly, honestly, and without guarantee. It is an act of risk, of defiance, and of faith.

Sometimes we do not even know what it is we have done wrong. Sometimes errors are invisible, missteps unnoticed, the damage silent. The Journal becomes a place where these unrecognized faults can surface, if only as echoes. And yet, still we write. Because the page is both mirror and mercy. It is a space where blame can be held lightly, where grief can be translated into form, and where the act of trying, failing, and reaching again is itself enough.

To move in silence is to honor that process: to acknowledge the weight of consequence without being crushed by it, to sit with loss while finding renewal in expression, and to step forward, cautiously, into the world that continues on—unaware, relentless, indifferent—carrying our words with us. Cameron’s writing teaches that even in the face of public scrutiny, uncertainty, and the quiet persistence of life as though nothing has changed, the act of writing is an offering: to oneself, to the reader, and to the small chance that understanding may follow.

Because sometimes the only way to reckon with the unfathomable truth—that we do not always know what we’ve done wrong—is to write anyway. To release, to confess, to endure, and finally, to forgive ourselves enough to move forward. And when we do, when we step back into silence after the words have been cast, there is a subtle grace: the quiet acknowledgment that moving through error, through blame, and through the relentless world is itself a form of survival, and that the page, however unforgiving, is still the clearest witness to our humanity.

The rain of spring has given way to the hot temperatures of Summer.

Here in New England, we are having a sunny and warm summer. These temperatures have definitely curtailed my outside plans which is excellent for writing. I do have a trip to the beach in mind but I’m not sure how much writing I will be doing much less reading!

In any case, summer is a great time to think about creativity.

When it is too hot to be outside, it is great to be inside to catch up on creativity, platform building and much more.

This month, when I’m thinking about creativity, I’m thinking about works in progress that I haven’t touched in awhile. Sometimes we work on a project and get stuck, bored or something else and we simply end up moving on or giving up.

I’m encouraging you to return to those projects that you haven’t dusted off in awhile and give them another look.

Fresh eyes and a fresh perspective can provide breakthroughs.

I found this with a book I’ve been working on for years recently! I realized that I had gotten stuck in a certain chapter because I didn’t know how it should go. It was a lack of planning and I realized what was missing and now things are moving forward rapidly!

I wanted to draw your attention to a new buddy podcast that I’ve launched with a couple friends of mine. It’s called The Living Joke and we are talking about trending topics, gaming, movies, TV and more.

Come hang out with Connor, Will and myself as we talk about the stuff we are into. If you enjoy watching streaming gaming content, Connor and Will are streaming regularly and you might find me streaming some games too.

Please do follow us right here on Substack, and follow our journey! We have three episodes out right now and the guys just did a ranking of Gen one Pokemon that is tons of fun!

I also wanted to let everyone know that we are launching a new literary magazine right here on Substack.

SOOP Literary will be a platform for fiction authors who are ready to reach a bigger audience. We are excited to raise up the next group of great authors for future anthologies.

SOOP Literary replaces our annual short story contest that we have done in years past. The contest was fun but this will provide some real platform building for our authors and will delight our audiences with fresh fiction.

As you know, many things have changed here at SOOP and this is just another aspect of how we are changing and evolving.

You can make your submissions on the submissions page.

One last thing, I recently had Otis Lee Jr. on The Cameron Journal to talk about his book, “I Was Born in the Forest” about the Palmares people in Brazil who escaped slavery and built a civilization in the forests of Brazil. The Palmares existed for nearly a century before falling to the Portuguese.

I love stories about the African diaspora in the Americas and this book is a must-read!

Alright, that’s all from me this month. See you in August!

Cameron Lee Cowan

Director of Publications and Anthologies

Executive Director, SOOPcast Network

SOOPmedia

Welcome to almost-summer!

Are you enjoying these warmer temperatures? I certainly am enjoying the warmer weather but I did install my window AC in my office this weekend. I hope your enjoying the weather where you are, unless you’re in the midwest where its still a bit wet and cloudy.

Subscribe now

Summer can be a fun time to write, especially if you can do it in a fun location.

It can also be tough to find a time to write between events, vacations, family coming and going and more. But, this can still be a creative time because in that chaos of having kids or grandkids at home your writing can be a helpful stabilizer for us all. One of the things I’ve been thinking about lately is how my writing can be a rock in the chaos of scaling SOOPmedia.net and The Cameron Journal. I’ve been writing about rediscovering my writing in my little columns each month to you and the chaos of summer can be a great time to write.

For those that might be working outside, I can’t recommend enough, a produce called the “Free Write.” I’ve had one for about 8 years and it is a stand alone typewriter (digital) that can upload directly to dropbox and Google Drive when connected to Wi-fi. The Germans are a clever bunch and I love the tool. The best part is that the e-ink screen is visible in direct sunlight which is perfect for writing outside. They also have a ton of other devices! Make sure to check them out!

When you’ve had a chance to write, make sure to think about submitting to our anthology collections. We are currently taking submissions for Moerk Skog: The Dark Forest which is a horror/dystopian collection and we’re just about to launch a memoir anthology collection. Check out the anthologies page for more information and how to submit.

I hope this little message finds you well and I hope you enjoy the rest of May.

https://youtube.com/shorts/n-cjmC7OjtU?si=8O_Gjj3BxQwOL7s3

Warm regards,

Cameron Lee Cowan

Director of Publications and Anthologies, SOOP

Welcome to spring everyone!

I’m really excited for these warmer temperatures and more sun! It’s exciting! I’ve been thinking a lot about fiction writing lately. Between my work at The Cameron Journal and here at SOOP, there’s not always a ton of time to write fiction but I feel it drawing me back in. I’ve been away from it for far too long and I need to open up those projects again. As the weather improves, it helps get me up and moving to do more, be more active and maybe even get some more fiction writing done.

I write a lot for various things (like this Substack post) but that doesn’t always mean I get to a fiction project. I will have them open and I often look at those tabs longingly at the end of the day wishing I still had a brain left to write a handful of words. But maybe that’s all I need to do is write a handful of words.

Right now, here’s what I’m doing to spark my creativity again:

1) I’m reading my own words back to me to get back into the creative place

2) Improving outlines (deeply creative for me)

3) Giving myself grace (I have a non-fiction book coming out soon!)

4) Re-visiting my Pinterest inspiration boards

5) Taking small notes as I have flashes of creativity

The most important thing is to not forget about your project. I admit that in the shuffle of doing videos and other content creation, I’ve let my fiction languish. I need to take my own advice I offer in my courses about finding a small time to write each day, even if it’s only 15 minutes. Usually, for me to reach that creative place I need a block of time but I might have to shift my thinking on how I write fiction and how I access that part of my creativity. My project for spring is to get those projects reactivated. I have my whole manuscript from my MFA that is sitting on my desk, about half way edited and I am looking at it daily. Let’s make it our project, together, this spring, to get back into that fiction place. I will work on it too and we’ll see how we do next month!

Keep writing!

Cameron Lee Cowan, MFA

Director of Publications and Anthologies, SOOP

Welcome to March everyone!

You may have noticed that we’ve released our first Hybrid project, About Not Losing by Dr. James Ogsbury. Dr. Ogsbury came to us with a couple of scanned PDFs and not much else and a year later we have a book! I think what’s exciting is that now we are offering something that is more attainable by certain authors and that means that we’re really offering publishing options for almost any kind of author who is looking to get published. This is an exciting time for SOOP. If you’re ready to start your author journey, check out our Publishing Options, and find a way that SOOP can help make your book real.

If you don’t want to publish with SOOP, that’s ok too (although we’d love to have you) we also offer plenty of services for authors. You can hire me for writing coaching, sign up for a marketing plan, or come on one of the podcast shows in our SOOPcast network. No matter where you are on your journey, we can help you!

Spring is a great time for writing too. Today it is so sunny and warm out, after that long winter it was nice to step outside today without being greeted by an icy blast from the air and feeling like my lungs were going to freeze! Spring is a time to get outside and take in all the sights, sounds and smells of a world waking up from the wintry slumber. I always focus people on sitting in the chair and getting words on the page but the creative well has to be refilled as well. This month, I’m encouraging everyone to get out and enjoy these springtime temperatures and weather and refill your creative well. After you’ve refilled then its back to the page to up that word count!

I’ll see you soon!

Cameron Lee Cowan M.A. MFA
Director of Publications and Anthologies.

1. How to read as a writer

2. The basics of revision

3. How to outline and draft

4. How to hire an editor

5. How to submit your work for publication

6. Publishing Options (including hybrid, self, and traditional publishing)

7. How a book comes to life!
   

Please visit The Cameron Journal Academy and check out my Fiction and Non-Fiction courses to learn more.