[1] After the war, Peter Cowan returned to Perth and taught English and Geography for many years at Scotch College.
He wrote a biography of his grandmother Edith Dircksey Cowan, entitled A Unique Position (1978), and a biography of her uncle Maitland Brown (1988), as well as editing the letters of Eliza and Thomas Brown (A Faithful Picture, 1977), and the diary and reports of Walkinshaw Cowan (A Colonial Experience, 1978).
[citation needed] In 1987, he was made a Member of the Order of Australia,[5] and in 1992 he received the Patrick White Award for an Australian Writer of Great Distinction.
[3] He was named one of Western Australia's Living Treasures in 1999, and was awarded a Centenary Medal in 2001 for service to literature through writing.
[7][full citation needed] The competition involves the submission of stories of a maximum of 600 words, and is administered by the Peter Cowan Writers Centre in Joondalup, Western Australia.