Mike McClanahan

Background

About Mike McClanahan

My first career was as a sales and marketing executive and consultant. A major component of my work involved writing and producing materials for advertising, marketing, business development, training and education. Because of this, I am particularly adept at breaking complex issues and concepts into easily-understood information that allows readers to grasp those concepts and act on them intelligently. My ad/marketing and promotional writing stresses features and benefits, differentiation and clear calls to action. My writing has appeared in numerous publications including the Denver Post, the Denver Business Journal, the Frontier Airlines magazine Wild Blue Yonder, Corporate Apparel, WatchBoom.com, MexicoXpatz, Photo Lab Management, Colorado Golfer, Ad/Marketing Review, Info, and The Marketing Journal. I also edited the quarterly online magazine MexicoXpatz until its “hiatus” in 2009. I have published a biographical essay on newspaperman and short story writer Damon Runyon and am working on a similar one about novelist, historian and biographer Gene Fowler. Much of my writing, both business and creative, is infused with humor. I have contributed to the Denver Press Club’s annual Gridiron Review, a satirical look at local and national social and political issues. Republican Party Animal is an essay describing how the ordinary house cat is a perfect symbol of the GOP. I keep coming back to Joseph Campbell's admonition to follow one's bliss, and my true bliss is writing. In 2007 I set aside most other pursuits to devote myself to that goal. I have been assured by family members, business associates, close friends and others who have vested interests in maintaining cordial relationships with me that all of this writing is very good and of the highest professional quality. I might add that numbered among my advocates are award-winning writers whose honors include Pulitzer Prizes, although some of these individuals do drink heavily on occasion. Specialties: News/Editorial Copy editing Web content Press releases, promotional articles, newsletters, motivational writing, training manuals Technical Writing Advertising Copy Trade journal, direct mail, radio script, print ad, catalogues, direct mail Humor, satire, essays, short stories, stage plays, fiction, history, biography