If you’ve ever had a professor with a sarcastic sense of humor, an endless supply of pop culture references or simply a Zach Galifianakis beard, you might have wondered what he or she was like before entering academia.

In most cases, the nature of the student-teacher relationship stops a professor from telling the best stories, like that time he got high as a kite and chauffeured famous author George Plimpton around Pittsburgh.

But Ohio University creative writing professor Dinty Moore does not fall under most cases.

As part of the Grand Valley State University Writers Series, Moore will host a craft talk from 2:30 to 3:45 p.m. in Room 2215 of the Kirkhof Center and read one of his newer pieces at 5:30 p.m. in the Alumni House.

Both events are free and open to the public.

“(Moore) has written about his explorations with drugs and Buddhism, his personal losses and misadventures, with honesty and humor, and he’s constantly surprising you with formal inventions,” said Austin Bunn, a GVSU assistant writing professor. “He’s impossible to pigeonhole as a writer and that makes him endlessly interesting.”

At the craft talk, Moore will answer student questions and provide feedback on student writing samples, Bunn said.

“Dinty Moore is a tremendous teacher, mentor and nonfiction writer, and he just published ‘Crafting the Personal Essay,’ a book about nonfiction writing that’s a great guide to the form and how to write it,” Bunn said. “His craft talk will expose students to smart techniques to write well and provocatively about their personal lives.”

Most of Moore’s pieces, including the one he will read Thursday, fall under the creative nonfiction genre, a writing style he says he finds challenging and fascinating because he is limited to facts and true experiences.

“It is like solving a puzzle most of the time,” Moore said. “How do I tell a true story and keep it interesting, fast-paced and entertaining for the reader?”

In his 2010 essay “Mr. Plimpton’s Revenge,” Moore sought to keep his readers interested by using an uncommon writing tool – Google Maps.

The waypoints on the map link to paragraphs in the webpage’s left margin that explain, among other things, that the undergraduate-writing-student version of Moore “was as high as the 42nd story of the University of Pittsburgh’s towering Cathedral of Learning” when he retrieved Plimpton from the airport.

Moore’s use of the navigation software to describe his experience driving around author and editor George Plimpton earned him a spot in the collection “Best American Essays 2010.”

From oral storytelling to social media, Moore said he is fascinated by the evolution of stories.

“Facebook and Twitter are storytelling media – very different from the 400-page book, but the instinct to share the experience is the same,” he said.

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