In an unexpected announcement, humor columnist and author W. Bruce Cameron announced that he has decided to discontinue his newspaper column on Jan 7th.
Cameron made the announcement with his usual sense of humor: “So, after starting my column in 1995 as an email only thing, going to the Rocky Mountain News in 1998 and to Creators in syndication in 2002, I’m calling it quits. My last column will be Jan 7th.This is the year to do it, after winning Newspaper Columnist of the Year–I’m never going to get a Pulitzer or Playmate of the Month, so I’m throwing in the towel. “
He told NSNC colleagues, “It’s not particularly easy to do this. I’m just overbooked, and taking the time and energy to write a column has gotten harder now that I no longer have teenagers deluging me with material every day.”
Cameron was named Columnist of the Year by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists at their 2011 Conference in Detroit. Building on his success as a columnist, Cameron has developed other venues for his career, becoming a novelist, movie script writer, and popular speaker. Cameron‘s novel, “A Dog’s Purpose,” is a best seller that is being made into a movie. A previous book, “8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter,” based on one of his columns, became a TV series.
Cameron was born and raised in Petoskey, Michigan, before moving to Colorado and finding fame as a humor columnist for the Rocky Mountain News. Cameron says he always wanted to be a writer. After attending college, Cameron became a freelance writer, supporting himself with various odd jobs. In 1995 he got the idea of starting an online Internet column. It began with six subscribers and grew to 40,000 in 52 countries. In 1998 the Rocky Mountain News placed his column in its Home section and he soon became one of the most popular columnists in the newspaper (now out of business). Creators Syndicate picked up h is column in October 2001. Creators distributes comics and columns to 2,400 newspapers and Internet sites worldwide.
The California-based writer is a longtime member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. He has appeared on a number of conference programs. In 2006, he won the Robert Benchley Award for Humor, which was judged by Dave Barry. That same year, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists selected Cameron as the No. 1 Humor Columnist in Newspapers with over 100,000 circulation.
Cameron who got his start as an Internet columnist, praises the Internet saying the huge amount of available content forces the audience to be discerning and choose the best. But he also notes that the key problem of 21st century free-lancing is to keep self-marketing from stealing your writing time.
