Rowena Alegría served as Chief Storyteller for the City & County of Denver, founder and director of the Denver Office of Storytelling, from 2019 to 2024. The world’s only storytelling, cultural preservation and narrative change project created nine documentary films and about a hundred short films, made about four million impressions on social media and hosted more than seventy community events in which story opened into conversations about our collective history, challenges and triumphs.
Under Alegría’s leadership, the team brought resident voices and histories out of the shadows and onto big and little screens for more than half million people. The work was selected for five film festivals, nominated for six Heartland Emmy Awards and honored with some 27 different awards, including History Colorado’s Josephine H. Miles Award for a major contribution to state history.
Alegría has spoken around the world about the power of storytelling, including before the National Civic League, Georgetown University Center for Social Impact, American Planning Association, Smart Cities Connect, Center for Public Safety Excellence, and at a one-day symposium inspired by the Office of Storytelling and organized by Sorbonne University. She was Naropa University’s 2024 Cobb Peace Lecturer and among the urban thought leaders at the first Bruner Debates on Urban Excellence. She once moderated an evening with the amazing Rita Moreno.
As an appointee of former Mayor Michael B. Hancock, Alegría served in one of the state’s most challenging and high-profile communications positions, directing strategy for crisis, issues and media management while also launching pro-active campaigns and coordinating communications for events such as the 2012 Presidential Debate and several Denver Broncos rallies. She organized and staffed some 14 interviews and appearances for the Mayor in New York City as part of Super Bowl XLVIII, including his appearances on the Today Show, The Colbert Report, ESPN and MSNBC. A video she conceived, wrote and directed around Mayor Hancock’s playoff bet with Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake made national and local news plus ESPN’s Top 10 Plays of the Day and enjoyed 190k views on YouTube. She led planning and writing of several major addresses.
In her final role with the city, Alegría provided management and leadership to Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s ten appointed community commissions (as below, with up to 21 appointees each), commission chairs and up to ten staff liaisons who all worked to advise HRCP and the mayor on the special issues and opportunities of their respective constituencies and to recommend necessary procedures, programs, legislation or administrative action and to promote to the city equal rights and opportunity for the people. She served as staff liaison to the LGBTQ Commission and Women’s Commission.
- African American Commission
- American Indian Commission
- Asian American Pacific Islander Commission
- Commission on Aging
- LGBTQ Commission
- Immigrant & Refugee Commission
- Latino Commission
- Commission for People with Disabilities
- Nonprofit Engagement Commission
- Women’s Commission
She has received meaningful recognition including the Denver Business Journal’s 2023 DEI Award and a Latinas First Foundation Trailblazer Award. Alegría was the 2021 Ricardo Salinas Scholar in Fiction at Aspen Words and has been the recipient of art-making fellowships and residencies. She earned an MFA in Fiction from the Institute of American Indian Arts and is a member of Sandra Cisneros’ Macondo Writers Workshop. Her creative writing has appeared in publications including The Rumpus, the Mississippi Review, the Hennepin Review and a 2023 anthology titled We Are the West.
She graduated Magna Cum Laude with an Honors Designation from Metropolitan State University of Denver and earned her Master of Fine Arts in Fiction at the Institute of American Indian Arts.
A filmmaker, career journalist, communications executive and speech writer, she is writing a novel that plays with form and the history of the Southwest. She was adopted and raised in Denver.