Ken Brack is a narrative nonfiction author moved by how people grow through catastrophic ordeals. His first book, Closer By The Mile, is the story of the country’s leading single-event athletic fundraiser, the Pan-Mass Challenge bike-a-thon for cancer research. A native of Natick, Ma., he blogs for Psychology Today and other publications, and in 2008 co-founded a nonprofit bereavement center, Hope Floats Healing and Wellness Center, in Kingston, Ma. A longtime journalist in New England, Brack has a M.Ed. from Northeastern University and taught high school English in Boston.