Bob Cowser, Jr.'s first book, DREAM SEASON, published in 2004 by the Atlantic Monthly Press, was a New York Times Book Review "Editor's Choice" and "Paperback Row" selection and was listed among the Chronicle of Higher Education's best-ever college sports books. It garnered further praise in Sports Illustrated, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, and on NPR's "Only a Game." His second book, SCOREKEEPING, a collection of coming-of-age essays, was published in October 2006 by the University of South Carolina Press. He is currently at work on a third book about the 1979 murder of one of his grade school classmates and the execution of her killer in 2000, the first execution in Tennessee in 40 years.
Cowser was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and grew up in rural west Tennessee, where his parents worked as college English teachers. He graduated summa cum laude from Loyola-New Orleans in 1992 with majors in English and Print Journalism, then earned a Master's in English at Marquette University in 1994 and a PhD in creative writing from the University of Nebraska in 1998.
An academy of American Poets prizewinner and Pushcart Prize nominee, Cowser's work has appeared widely in American literary magazines, including the Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, American Literary Review, Sycamore Review, Brevity, Sonora Review and Creative Nonfiction. He is Associate Professor of English at St. Lawrence University, where he teaches courses in nonfiction writing and later American literature, and an adjunct member of the faculty of Ashland University's Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts program. He also serves as associate editor of River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative. Cowser lives on the Grasse River in Canton, NY with his wife, Candace, and their sons Jackson and Mason.
