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Alec Cowan

Senior Podcast Producer

About

Alec Cowan is a senior podcast producer at KUOW, where he works on Booming and other podcast projects.

Alec has worn many hats at KUOW. He helped launch Soundside and brought many eclectic stories to the program, from a late-night patrol with real life superheroes to the sewing machine sounds of an artisanal sail loft. Additionally, he was previously a producer for The Record with Bill Radke and the Primed podcast.

Before joining KUOW, Alec worked in NPR's Story Lab, where he helped pilot the Louder Than a Riot podcast and assisted in producing a story on volunteerism in Iraq for Rough Translation. Originally from Grand Junction, Colorado, his roots in the Northwest begin in Eugene, where he studied English and philosophy at the University of Oregon and worked as a news reporter for NPR member station KLCC. He is likely neglecting his saxophone, growing book collection, and expanding personal project list in favor of boosting his online Xbox ranking.

He's proud to be KUOW's unofficial "boat guy."

Location: Seattle

Languages Spoken: English

Pronouns: he/him/his

Stories

  • caption: Part of a mural celebrating August Wilson's work in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

    Remembering August Wilson's Seattle legacy

    August Wilson's "Century Cycle," comprised of 10 plays detailing and exploring the life of African Americans throughout the 1900s, is famously set in his hometown of Pittsburgh. But for the last 15 years of his life Wilson lived in Seattle, drawing inspiration from café windows and conversations at the local IHOP.

  • caption: Purse-seine boat Intruder rescues crew of the Aleutian Isle amid flotsam of the sunken boat on August 13 off San Juan Island.

    Fishing vessel sinks off San Juan Islands, leaking fuel

    At 2:00pm on Saturday the U.S. Coast Guard received a distress call from a commercial fishing vessel named the Aleutian Isle. The vessel was near the San Juan Islands and taking on water. The crew onboard evacuated to a small skiff before being picked up by a good Samaritan, and the Aleutian Isle eventually sank to the sea floor, where it remains today.

  • caption: Seattle Mariners starting pitcher Marco Gonzales throws to a San Francisco Giants batter during the first inning of a baseball game Thursday, April 1, 2021, in Seattle.

    What's the line between innovation and cheating in professional baseball?

    Professional baseball has long been a proving ground for new ways to fool crowds and umpires, From sign stealing to illegal hacking operations to a little extra spit on the ball to get the perfect curve in a pitch. But there's a fine line between innovation and cheating.

  • school class books generic

    The books that bind us -- your favorite Washington books and authors

    Summer is a great time to curl up in the park with a good book. It's also a time when we start to thaw a bit from our Seattle freeze and head out to explore everything Washington has to offer. From the Palouse to the Peninsula, we have a lot of landscapes to explore. Those landscapes -- and their histories -- have inspired many of our local authors. Today Soundside speaks with some of your favorite authors about what makes Washington a literary wonderland.

  • forest trees northwest oregon

    Listen again: What federal reforestation plans mean for Washington state

    Last Monday the Biden Administration announced plans to plant more than one billion trees across the western United States to restore forests damaged by climate change. Washington State is already facing a tree seed shortage, and our state's forest nursery is racing to ramp up production.