Greg Bowers was born in Hanover, grew up in York and graduated from Catawba College in Salisbury, NC and Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA.

He was a reporter and editor at The York Dispatch/Sunday News, then became a professor at the University of Missouri’s journalism school in Columbia, MO.

This is how creative nonfiction works: Life pushes past fast, like an 18-wheeler on a dark highway. Later, you can go back and spend more thought. What does it mean? How, even if only in a small way, are things different than they were before?

“So what?” is about an embarrassing incident at a Wendy’s off I-83. After years of trying to forget about it, it took a closer look to remember it and figure out what it meant.

“He was an exclamation point” is about a day-trip to British Columbia with a profanity-spewing friend. That memory simmered for years too.

It emerged as a story about identity