EJ Miller

In a long and productive life, I’ve experienced a lot, including all the usual Boomer angst. (And, yes, the music was much better in the sixties, so we can get that out of the way.)

I learned to read sitting on my dad’s lap, following his finger while he read Joseph Campbell’s magazines aloud to me. I wrote my first sci fi story when I was in sixth grade.

After marriage and children sucked up my time for a decade or two, I went back to reporting. I worked free-lance for local newspapers in California, Texas, Rio de Janeiro, and Berkshire, England.

In Rio, I reported on American business interests, and wrote reviews of various aspects of Brazilian life for English language newspaper and magazines. A story on an important futebol (soccer) game won me a position as a Time/Life correspondent. So, I wore my dented cameras and carried my ballpoint pens and notebooks around the country for years. I reported on wrestling, boxing (blood splatters a long way,) art exhibits, crimes, and restaurants. A Brazilian company hired me to cobble together a tech newsletter from American sources, and I learned how stupid someone else’s translation can make your writing look.

In England I edited and wrote for a club magazine which was eagerly read by every foreign lady who expected to be mentioned, or who wanted access to the “American Leaving” want ads. Urged by several advertisers, I started another magazine based on photographic essays, but alas, my husband was transferred back to the States. So, after starting in Berkeley, and eight years in Rio, two in Dallas, and four in Berkshire, we settled in the Seattle area.

And so, fiction called in dulcet tones and I took genre fiction classes at University of Washington, figuring I was not cut out for the literary fiction sequence. Altor was born in those shabby classrooms, and I submitted the first three chapters of Altor: Abandoned on Earth to the Pacific Northwest Writers’ Association (PNWA) competition and placed first in the sci-fi/fantasy category.