Mariah Lamour is a Creative Writing graduate student and professional sewist from the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. Their work is greatly inspired by history, folklore, and the natural world, as well as their contemporary existence as a queer and disabled person.
Sewing
Lamour has been sewing for over twenty years, and sewing well for at least fifteen of those. Their first serious foray into costuming was through a LARP campaign, which sparked curiosity and investigation of the historical forms and materials which often inspire fantasy designs. A semester of workstudy at Gustavus Adolphus College afforded Lamour the opportunity to study pattern drafting, draping, fitting, and construction under a mentor, reinforcing and improving upon self-taught skills with industry terminology and techniques.
Lamour has worked professionally as a design interpreter, pattern maker, and sewing machine operator for Ignite Dance Connections, a contractor for Felix Needleworthy Fine Costumes, and as a small-batch slow fashion artist under the name Faire & Fable.
Follow Lamour’s other sewing and crafting adventures on Instagram @boundbyhistory or view a gallery of past Costumes.
Writing
A romantic daydreamer of the unassuming, introverted sort, Lamour nonetheless approaches writing as a meticulous exercise of exploration and linguistic tinkering.
Lamour obtained a Creative Writing certificate from Century College in 2017, a BA in Technical Communication & Professional Writing from Metropolitan State University in 2019, and is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at Hamline University, where they have participated in reading for Water~Stone Review and assisted in teaching the capstone course for the Creative Writing BFA program.
Samples of Lamour’s short fiction appear in publications Wishbone Words and Enchanted Living magazine.
Read or listen to an array of creative self-exploratory essays on Substack or check back for Blog posts.
Connection
Where the literary arts and alternative fashion intersect might not be evident on a surface level, but the very essence of all arts is to communicate something: often an emotion, instruction, or both simultaneously. Art seeks attention, delivers messages from the world of the Self to the myserious Other, from Us to Them, building bridges between the two by tapping into fundamental human experiences, revealing them, opening a path to understanding, and strengthening connections between all the myriad participants of life.