He received his undergraduate degree in sociology from Loyola University and was a graduate of Brother Rice High School in Chicago.
Powers wrote four books of fiction, The Last Catholic in America (Dutton 1973), Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?
(Regnery 1975), The Unoriginal Sinner and the Ice Cream God (Contemporary 1977), and The Junk Drawer, Corner Store, Front Porch Blues (Dutton 1992).
Powers wrote the libretto to a Broadway musical based loosely on characters and events from his first two novels entitled Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?
The first Scissors, Paper, Rock that was based on his Emmy Award-winning special Going Home and the second, which ran in Chicago, Life's Not Fair, So What.