 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
|
Derek B. Miller is an American novelist and international affairs specialist.
| This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
|
Derek B. Miller is an American novelist and international affairs specialist.
Miller was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in Wellesley. Miller's family emigrated from Eastern Europe to Massachusetts in the late 1800s and early 1900s from the Jewish Pale of Settlement. He has two children. [1] [2]
Miller is a graduate of Wellesley High School (1988), Sarah Lawrence College (B.A. in Liberal Arts, 1992), Georgetown University (M.A. in national security studies from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, 1996), The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies of Geneva, Switzerland (D.E.S in international relations, 1998, and Ph.D. 2004) where he graduated with the highest distinction of summa cum laude. He attended St. Catherine's College at the University of Oxford (1995-1996) and later Linacre College (1999-2000) on scholarship from the Europaeum Consortium, also at Oxford.
He later published Media Pressure on Foreign Policy: The Evolving Theoretical Framework with Palgrave based on his dissertation "Bad Press." The study offered a theory of media pressure - what it is, how it works, how it can be measured - based in part on 'positioning theory' in discursive psychology. Professor Rom Harré (former head of Philosophy at Oxford) wrote: 'This fascinating book opens up quite new directions in the study of key political processes. Focusing on the alleged influence that the media are supposed to exercise on the political process, Derek Miller brings two novel sets of considerations to bear. Turning to the history of discussions of media influence he brings to light the profundity of discussions of this very issue in the period during which the Western democratic tradition was being forged. Perhaps more importantly he asks the fundamental question: how could the media influence the political process? To answer this question he makes use of one of the most recent developments in social psychology, positioning theory. This is an original and powerful study, and deserves to be very widely read.' [3]
Miller has worked in international affairs since 1994, starting his career as an intern on Capitol Hill for then-Senator William S. Cohen (R - Maine). He was the founding editor of Georgetown's National Security Studies Quarterly and has held positions with, or consulted for, many think tanks and organizations including The Mission of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations at Geneva; The Small Arms Survey; International Alert; the United Nations Development Programme; and The United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research among others. Miller founded The Policy Lab® in 2011 where he is Director. Additionally, he is (since 2015) Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy, Salve Regina University, and Research Associate at the Centre on Conflict, Development, and Peacebuilding at the Graduate Institute Geneva. [4] In 2018, Miller helped found and launch Voices Between: Stories Against Extremism, an initiative by storytellers to innovate learning about war and peace. [5]
In January 2013 The Times newspaper said Miller's debut novel Norwegian by Night was one to look out for in the forthcoming year, [6] and The Economist also praised the book. [7]
Norwegian by Night — written in English — was first published in Norway in translation by Cappelen Damm (2010) as Et merkelig sted å dø. The novel's first English-language publisher was Scribe in Australia (2013), followed by Faber & Faber in the UK, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the U.S. It was later published in many other countries.
Norwegian by Night received many favorable reviews. [8] [9] It was shortlisted for seven literary awards winning the Crime Writers' Association's John Creasy Dagger Award for a debut crime novel. It was also awarded the eDunnit Award and the Goldsboro Last Laugh Award and was nominated for the Strand Magazine Critic's Award for Best First Novel, the American Bookseller's Association's 2014 Indie Choice Award, Barry Award for Best First Novel, and the Macavity Award for Best First Mystery. Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo wrote that it was "one of those books that completely transcends its genre and offers us one of the most memorable characters — Sheldon Horowitz — that I’ve encountered in years." [10]
Miller's second novel, The Girl in Green (2016), was also published by Faber & Faber. In the UK it was short-listed for the 2017 Crime Writers' Association's Gold Dagger for the "best crime novel of the year" with the judges writing that "after his award-winning debut, Norwegian by Night, Derek B. Miller has delivered a blistering and powerful successor in The Girl in Green, set against the backdrop of war-torn Iraq. This is a thought-provoking tour de force with unforgettable characters – one not to be missed." [11] It was a Shelf Awareness Best Book of 2017. [12] In 2019, Karl Marlantes (winner of the Navy Cross and author of Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War ), wrote for The Wall Street Journal that The Girl in Green "is page-turning adventure and humor overlaid on bungling bureaucracy and the sorrows of war. It’s up there with Catch-22 … [and] In Arwood Hobbes, Mr. Miller beautifully captures the sardonic language of the American grunt. The novel is a superb example of Wavy Gravy’s comment in the aftermath of a disaster, that, 'Without a sense of humor, it just isn’t funny.'" [13]
Miller's third novel, American by Day (2018), was published by Transworld at Penguin Random House. [14] Like The Girl in Green, it was also short-listed for the Crime Writers' Association's Gold Dagger (2019). [15] Richard Russo, on reading American by Day, wrote, "Sure Derek Miller's novels are smart and full of heart and savvy and hilarious, but even more than all of this, he's fun. He's as dedicated as any writer I know to the proposition that readers should enjoy themselves, should delight in the experience of life and language. If our hearts get broken along the way, so much the better." [16] Val McDermid picked American by Day for her Best Crime Fiction of 2019 for Five Books, writing, "American by Day is engagingly written. Miller isn’t afraid to write characters who are opinionated. They don’t hold their tongue about what they believe in, they let rip. People are angry, people are passionate. I love the unorthodoxy of it, I suppose. It’s not what you expect it to be." [17]
Miller's fourth novel, Radio Life (2021), is his debut into science fiction, published by Jo Fletcher Books (UK). "In this riveting political thriller, The Commonwealth, a post-apocalyptic civilisation on the rise, is locked in a clash of ideas with the Keepers, a fight which threatens to destroy the world . . . again." [18] Novelist Chris Brookmyre wrote, "It’s one of the most captivating epics I’ve read in ages, evoking a convincing sense of fragile social structure reminiscent of China Miéville at his best, in combination with a philosophical underpinning that lends real weight to the stakes. It reads like Mad Max as imagined by Neal Stephenson. It’s luxuriantly immersive, truly transporting in a way that is invaluable during these trying times." It was picked for best new science fiction by the Financial Times [19] and The Guardian, [20] and Best New Thriller by The Sunday Times. [21]
Miller's fifth novel, How to Find Your Way in the Dark (2021) is the long-anticipated prequel to Norwegian by Night. Again by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, it is described as, "A coming-of-age story set during the rising tide of World War II, How to Find Your Way in the Dark follows Sheldon Horowitz from his humble start in a cabin in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, through the trauma of his father’s murder and the murky experience of assimilation in Hartford, Connecticut, to the birth of stand-up comedy in the Catskills — all while he and his friends are beset by anti-Semitic neighbors, employers, and criminals." [22] The New York Times gave it a glowing review, writing: ″I am convinced that Derek B. Miller’s How to Find Your Way in the Dark ... was expressly tailored to my tastes and that I am its ideal reader. I suspect others will feel the same way; it’s that kind of book … In less confident hands the many moving parts would collapse into a jumble. Miller, however, juggles each element effortlessly. His character portraits are indelible, often heartbreaking. At times this novel moved me to tears, the highest possible compliment.". [23] The novel was selected by The New York Times as a Best Mystery Novel of the Year for 2021. [24]
His sixth novel, Quiet Time (2021), was released as an Audible Original novel and narrated by the award-winning Bahni Turpin. Audible writes, "At its heart, Quiet Time is a story about growing pains - in adolescence and mid-life - and what it means to be a family in a world that feels both hyper-connected and relentlessly alienating. At turns comedic, suspenseful, and poignant, Derek B. Miller pairs his immersive, signature storytelling gifts with Bahni Turpin’s singular voice to bring this astounding Audible Original to life." [25]
His seventh novel, The Curse of Pietro Houdini, (2024) was published by Avid Reader Press at Simon & Schuster in the U.S., by Transworld at Penguin Random House in the UK, and also translated into Turkish. It was short-listed for the Wilber Smith Award for Best Novel, and Tom Nolon of The Wall Street Journal called it "[An] urgent work that slyly honors authors both ancient and modern. . . Mr. Miller’s book has the ring of truth and the echo of myth, and it deserves all the lucky readers who discover it.”
Maurice Gough Gee is a New Zealand novelist. He is one of New Zealand's most distinguished and prolific authors, having written over thirty novels for adults and children, and has won numerous awards both in New Zealand and overseas, including multiple top prizes at the New Zealand Book Awards, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in the UK, the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship, the Robert Burns Fellowship and a Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement. In 2003 he was recognised as one of New Zealand's greatest living artists across all disciplines by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand, which presented him with an Icon Award.
William John Banville is an Irish novelist, short story writer, adapter of dramas and screenwriter. Though he has been described as "the heir to Proust, via Nabokov", Banville himself maintains that W. B. Yeats and Henry James are the two real influences on his work.
Karin Slaughter is an American crime writer. She has written 24 novels, which have sold more than 40 million copies and have been published in 120 countries. Her first novel, Blindsighted (2001), was published in 27 languages and made the Crime Writers' Association's Dagger Award shortlist for "Best Thriller Debut" of 2001.
Percival Leonard Everett II is an American writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California. He has described himself as "pathologically ironic" and has played around with numerous genres such as western fiction, mysteries, thrillers, satire and philosophical fiction. His books are often satirical, aimed at exploring race and identity issues in the United States.
Lee Goldberg is an American author, screenwriter, publisher and producer known for his bestselling novels Lost Hills and True Fiction and his work on a wide variety of TV crime series, including Diagnosis: Murder, A Nero Wolfe Mystery, Hunter, Spenser: For Hire, Martial Law, She-Wolf of London, SeaQuest, 1-800-Missing, The Glades and Monk.
Alexander Chee is an American fiction writer, poet, journalist and reviewer.
Kenneth Martin Edwards is a British crime novelist, whose work has won multiple awards including lifetime achievement awards for his fiction, non-fiction, short fiction, and scholarship in the UK and the United States. In addition to translations into various European languages, his books have been translated into Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese. As a crime fiction critic and historian, and also in his career as a solicitor, he has written non-fiction books and many articles. He is the current President of the Detection Club and in 2020 was awarded the Crime Writers' Association's Diamond Dagger, the highest honour in British crime writing, in recognition of the "sustained excellence" of his work in the genre.
Louise Penny is a Canadian author of mystery novels set in the Canadian province of Quebec centred on the work of francophone Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec. Penny's first career was as a radio broadcaster for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). After she turned to writing, she won numerous awards for her work, including the Agatha Award for best mystery novel of the year five times, including four consecutive years (2007–2010), and the Anthony Award for best novel of the year five times, including four consecutive years (2010–2013). Her novels have been published in 23 languages.
Oneworld Publications is a British independent publishing firm founded in 1986 by Novin Doostdar and Juliet Mabey originally to publish accessible non-fiction by experts and academics for the general market. Based in London, it later added a literary fiction list and both a children's list and an upmarket crime list, and now publishes across a wide range of subjects, including history, politics, current affairs, popular science, religion, philosophy, and psychology, as well as literary fiction, crime fiction and suspense, and children's titles.
The Hate U Give is a 2017 young adult novel by Angie Thomas. It is Thomas's debut novel, expanded from a short story she wrote in college in reaction to the police shooting of Oscar Grant. The book is narrated by Starr Carter, a 16-year-old African-American girl from a poor neighborhood who attends an elite private school in a predominantly white, affluent part of the city. Starr becomes entangled in a national news story after she witnesses a white police officer shoot and kill her childhood friend, Khalil. She speaks up about the shooting in increasingly public ways, and social tensions culminate in a riot after a grand jury decides not to indict the police officer for the shooting.
Children of Blood and Bone is a 2018 young adult romantic fantasy novel by Nigerian-American novelist Tomi Adeyemi. The book, Adeyemi's debut novel and the first in a planned trilogy, follows heroine Zélie Adebola as she attempts to restore magic to the kingdom of Orïsha, following the ruling class kosidáns' brutal suppression of the class of magic practitioners Zélie belongs to, the maji.
Bahni Turpin is an American audiobook narrator and stage and screen actor based out of Los Angeles. Her audiobook career includes some of the most popular and critically-acclaimed books in recent years, including The Help and The Hate U Give. She has won 9 Audie Awards, including Audiobook of the Year for Children of Blood and Bone; 14 Earphone Awards; and 2 Odyssey Awards. Turpin has also earned a place on AudioFile magazine's list of Golden Voice Narrators, and in 2016, she was named Audible's Narrator of the Year. In 2018, Audible inducted her into the Narrator Hall of Fame.
Normal People is a 2018 novel by the Irish author Sally Rooney. Normal People is Rooney's second novel, published after Conversations with Friends (2017). It was first published by Faber & Faber on 30 August 2018. The book became a best-seller in the US, selling almost 64,000 copies in hardcover in its first four months of release. A critically acclaimed and Emmy nominated television adaptation of the same name aired from April 2020 on BBC Three and Hulu. A number of publications ranked it one of the best books of the 2010s.
Stuart Turton is an English author and journalist. His first novel, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (2018) was a bestseller internationally and won a number of awards including the 2018 Costa Book Award for First Novel. His most recent novel, The Last Murder at the End of the World, went to number one on the Sunday Times Bestseller list. His books have sold over one million copies in the US and UK.
Max Porter is an English writer, formerly a bookseller and editor, best known for his debut novel Grief Is the Thing with Feathers.
This Is How You Lose the Time War is a 2019 science fiction fantasy LGBT epistolary novel by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. It was first published by Simon & Schuster. It won the BSFA Award for Best Shorter Fiction, the Nebula Award for Best Novella of 2019, and the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Novella.
Sadie is a novel written by Courtney Summers. The book was released on September 4, 2018, and is told from two perspectives: some chapters offering Sadie's point of view and some chapters being styled as transcripts from a podcast called "The Girls" hosted by a man named West McCray. The release of the book was accompanied by the release of a mock true-crime podcast titled The Girls: Find Sadie which is available on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher.
Chris Whitaker is a British author known for his books Tall Oaks, All the Wicked Girls, We Begin at the End, and The Forevers.
Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks is a young adult novel written by Jason Reynolds, illustrated by Alexander Nabaum, and published October 8, 2019 by Atheneum Books. The book is a New York Times best seller, National Book Award for Young People's Literature finalist (2019), Coretta Scott King Award honor book (2020), and Carnegie Medal recipient (2021).
The Zoe Washington series is a series of middle grade novels by Janae Marks, consisting of the following books: From the Desk of Zoe Washington (2020) and On Air with Zoe Washington (2023). Several outlets included From the Desk of Zoe Washington in their list of the best children's books of 2020. It is also slated to be adapted into a film by Disney Branded Television.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
