Miller, Joe 1968-

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Miller, Joe 1968-

PERSONAL:

Born 1968. Education: University of Colorado at Boulder, B.A., 1994; attended Colorado Mountain College Alpine. Hobbies and other interests: Gardening, dogs, weight lifting, politics.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Kansas City, MO. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Journalist and author. Kansas City Central High School, debate squad assistant coach.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Recipient of numerous local, regional, and national journalism awards.

WRITINGS:

Cross-X: A Turbulent, Triumphant Season with an Inner-City Debate Squad (nonfiction), Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including Vibe, Popular Science, and Poets & Writers.

SIDELIGHTS:

Joe Miller is an award-winning journalist whose nonfiction debut, Cross-X: A Turbulent, Triumphant Season with an Inner-City Debate Squad, chronicles the struggles and successes of a high-school debate team from an impoverished, troubled high school in Kansas City, Missouri. Less a journalistic study than a participant's report, Miller follows the group of African American teens from Central High School as they work their way through the 2002-03 season, befriending many of them and even helping them by becoming an assistant coach. He centers his attention on the students' main coach, Jane Rinehart, a determined white woman who refuses to give up on her debaters and who pushes them to perform at their best, earning their respect through her toughness, dignity, and concern. Rinehart "embodies the idea that education is a calling: She refuses to lower her expectations for her students, who might otherwise languish at low-performing Central," observed Stacy A. Teicher in the Christian Science Monitor.

Miller carefully portrays the personal and academic lives of the debaters, including Marcus, Ebony, and Brandy. Marcus Leach, in particular, is considered by Rinehart to be a brilliant debater, and his incisive, quick-witted performance under pressure consistently proves her assessment to be correct. He "relishes his opportunities to prove people wrong when they look down on urban debaters, students of color who stand out amid the largely white crowds at national tournaments," Teicher noted. However, in a high school where only one in three freshmen are expected to ever graduate, the challenges are many, and Marcus wavers in his resolve to participate in a major tournament. Miller's story contrasts the poverty and crime-ridden world of the Central High students with the elitism encountered at wealthier schools where the debates take place. The disparity is not lost on any of the participants, nor is the fact that "intelligent, high-capacity students rise up in the inner city just as in the suburbs," but few are ultimately able to escape their circumstances. Miller also places the importance of debate into the context of education, and he captures the stress, determination, and fierce sense of competition that drives the debaters and their coach. "As the debate squad advances, Miller captures the rising tension and action of the art of argument," noted Booklist reviewer Vanessa Bush.

Miller's work "is to be lauded for its you-are-there feeling and for not shying away from subjects that defy easy answers," Teicher concluded. "It allows us into the powerful and poetic minds of young people—while pointing out how rarely those in impoverished schools receive such genuine intellectual nurturing." A Kirkus Reviews critic called Miller's book a "provocative portrait that uncovers entrenched racism and class disparities in the debate community and in America as a whole."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 15, 2006, Vanessa Bush, review of Cross-X: A Turbulent, Triumphant Season with an Inner-City Debate Squad, p. 16.

Bookmarks, January-February, 2007, review of Cross-X, p. 50.

Christian Science Monitor, January 16, 2007, Stacy A. Teicher, "How Debate Team Became Cool: A Journalist Follows a Cluster of High School Debaters Relying on Argument to Propel Themselves out of a Crumbling High School," review of Cross-X, p. 13.

Entertainment Weekly, October 6, 2006, Hannah Tucker, review of Cross-X, p. 77.

Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2006, review of Cross-X, p. 715.

Library Journal, September 1, 2006, Janet Ingraham Dwyer, review of Cross-X, p. 166.

Publishers Weekly, May 22, 2006, review of Cross-X, p. 39.

School Library Journal, January, 2007, Mary Ann Harlan, review of Cross-X, p. 166.