Greg Bowers

A master of sports journalism tackles a new writing challenge: narrative on Facebook

By Greg Bowers• Story Craft• November 18, 2020

Dave Kindred never intended to take on this project. Truth is, he didn’t even think of the Facebook posts he’s been writing as a project. But last spring, the walls began to close in on him. His wife, Cheryl, … Read more

Building writing muscles — a postcard a day

By Greg Bowers• Story Craft• April 28, 2020

With writing, as with most things, you get better with practice. Just ask an athlete. Or a sports reporter. Derrick Goold, baseball writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, guesses that he writes more than 400 stories a year about … Read more

How knowing the full story process informs a writer’s work

By Greg Bowers• Why's This So Good?• April 8, 2020

The anecdote is packed. Daniel Riley was writing a profile for GQ of Brooks Koepka, one of the world’s elite golfers, and he knew immediately that this would be a good scene to anchor his … Read more

Raw first stories from the Appalachian Trail

By Greg Bowers• Notable Narratives• February 28, 2019

When I first discovered that Earl Shaffer — the first man acknowledged to have hiked the entire 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine — lived nearby, I went through his brother John Shaffer with an interview request. It … Read more

For the love of analog in a digital world

By Greg Bowers• Digital Storytelling• February 6, 2019

Every August when I was young, my mother would take me to the store to buy some back-to-school notebooks. Maybe some pencils. Sometimes even a plastic pencil sharpener. This was a long time ago, but I still remember how … Read more

A brother’s death, written by a sister, channeling their mother’s voice

By Greg Bowers• Why's This So Good?• November 8, 2018

Sometimes I push writing students to look for new ways to tell stories. Should you start with the “small” things? Is there a story in the way a character dresses? How about the things they hang on the wall … Read more

Shadows cast on the love of a game

By Greg Bowers• Why's This So Good?• July 3, 2018

The story started in one direction and ended up going in a jarringly different one. But when the time came to write a feature on the Auburn Tigers softball team, ESPN’s Tom Junod went back to where he’d … Read more

About Greg Bowers