Author Brenda Miller to Speak About Writing as Vocation

WORCESTER, Mass. – Brenda Miller, co-author of Tell It Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Non-Fiction, will read from her personal essays and talk about her writing process on Thursday, Feb. 18 at 7:30 p.m. in the Rehm Library, College of the Holy Cross. The event is free and open to the public.

Miller is speaking as part of the Writers on Vocation Lecture Series, sponsored by the Lilly Vocation Discernment Initiative and the Creative Writing Program. The series invites nationally prominent writers to share their work and consider the role and interplay of faith in their writing.

Miller has published two collections of autobiographical essays. Season of the Body (Sarabande Books, 2002) explores themes of love, loss, loneliness and healing. Blessings of the Animals (Eastern Washington University Press, 2009) weaves together observations of a life driven by spiritual yearning. Her essays have received five Pushcart prizes and been published in a number of journals, including Fourth Genre, Creative Nonfiction, and The Sun.

Co-authored with Suzanne Paola, Tell It Slant (McGraw Hill, 2004) is designed for aspiring nonfiction writers, providing practical guidance, writing exercises, and a detailed discussion of the range of subcategories that make up the genre, including memoir, travel writing, investigative reporting, and more.

Miller is an associate professor of English at Western Washington University and serves as editor-in-chief of the Bellingham Review. About the Lilly Vocation Discernment Initiative

The Lilly Vocation Discernment Initiative is a resource for members of the Holy Cross community to reflect on questions of meaning and purpose for discerning their own life's work. The Initiative sponsors 25 programs partially funded through a $2.5 million grant from the Lilly Endowment and administered through Academic Affairs, the Chaplain’s Office and Student Affairs.