While still in her twenties, Teresa Miller, living in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, literally became one of the luckiest writers in the world. A top New York literary agent randomly picked her historical novel from a slush pile, then sold the manuscript to a major New York publisher. The novel, Remnants of Glory, caught the attention of such luminaries as writing guru John Gardner and acclaimed short story author Alice Munro. But Miller, waging a private battle with depression, developed an eighteen year writer's block that kept her from fulfilling her literary potential--at least as a writer.
Instead, she transformed her own passion for storytelling into an appreciation for the work of other authors, establishing a literature center that, despite Grapes of Wrath stereotypes, attracted many of the world's leading writers to Oklahoma. Miller also became executive host and producer of the public television program, Writing Out Loud. Now entering its tenth season on OETA, Oklahoma's PBS affiliate, the show has featured Miller's interviews with many of the country's leading writers and performers, including Dave Barry, Elmore Leonard, Frank McCourt, Amy Tan, David McCullough, Tony Hillerman, Pat Conroy, Anne Lamott, Isabel Allende, Ken Burns, and Lynn Redgrave.
Based at Oklahoma State University in Tulsa, where she also teaches a popular writing class, Miller has recently rediscovered her own voice. Described by PBS anchor Jim Lehrer as a "novelist of superb skills," she has written another novel, Family Correspondence, and she published her "slightly embellished memoir," Means of Transit, in September, 2008. The memoir speaks to the long, silent passages many of us have faced in our own lives. She is currently at work on a sequel to Family Correspondence
Teresa reads from Means of Transit (672.9KB)
