Miller, Ellen 1967(?)-

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MILLER, Ellen 1967(?)-

PERSONAL:

Born c. 1967, in New York, NY. Education: New York University, M.F.A.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY. Agent—c/o Dutton Publicity, 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.

CAREER:

Worked variously as a teacher of fiction writing at New York University, New School University, and Metropolitan Correction Center, all New York, NY.

WRITINGS:

Like Being Killed (novel), Dutton (New York, NY), 1998.

Contributor to such anthologies, including Full Frontal Fiction: The Best of Nerve.com, 110 Stories: New York Writes after September Eleven, and Lost Tribe.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

Stop, Drop, Roll, a novel.

SIDELIGHTS:

Author Ellen Miller was born and raised in New York City, where she received a master of fine arts degree from New York University. She has taught fiction-writing at a number of schools, including her alma mater and New School University, as well as at the city's Metropolitan Correction Center.

Miller's first novel, Like Being Killed, is set on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where Miller herself lived starting at the end of her teens, at a time when drug use was still rampant and very visible in the neighborhood. She was exposed to both the extensive drug trade operating on the streets and the rise of the AIDS epidemic. She mined her observations to create her protagonist, Ilyana Meyerovich. Ilyana is a twenty-something heroin addict who is intelligent to the point of intimidation. Miller shows how the drug affects her life, eating away at her friendships and her ability to function, and how it destroys the people around her. In direct contrast to Ilyana is her roommate, Susie, a sweet, naive girl whose presence serves as an anchor. Marion Winik, in the Austin Chronicle, observed that "amazingly, amid all this starkness and poignancy, a saving-grace levity raises its shyly grinning head." Winik pointed out that "most great books about drugs are not about drugs at all," and that, in the case of Miller's work, "it is at heart a book about friendship and morality, both their presence and absence."

Sonoma County Independent reviewer Patrick Sullivan remarked that "like an addict, Like Being Killed suffers from excess. It is some 50 pages too long, and in places, seems to be simply spinning its wheels. At times, Miller's prose labors mightily to prove just how darn clever both she and her character are." He went on to comment, however, that "the book has a compelling tale to tell, and for the most part, it is told well.… By the last page, Like Being Killed has wrung our assumptions inside out and left us wondering what we really know—about drugs and about life." Booklist contributor Ted Leventhal stated that "Miller is a great storyteller, with an easy, flowing prose style," and a reviewer for Publishers Weekly said of Miller that "her wonderful Ilyana is one of the more memorable misfits in recent fiction."