“Dependably provocative…”

I’m a writer and a community organizer. I live in the Bronx now, but I grew up in a depressed depressing middle-of-nowhere town in upstate New York. I was trained as a butcher, and my father was a butcher, and his father was a butcher, but our butcher shop went down the toilet when our town was eaten alive by Wal-Mart. Since then I’ve been a vegetarian. I went to Rutgers University, where I majored in Russian Literature and Cinema Studies, and met my boyfriend, although we didn’t start dating until after college. I’ve had pieces published in lots of zines, anthologies, and print and online literary journals. While I mostly write fiction, once in a while I write essays on things that make me really happy or really really angry (like horror movies, homelessness, homophobia, HIV/AIDS, punk rock, protest tactics). Check under “Publications” for a list of some of my favorites, including links to the ones that are available online.

I am the recipient of a 2008 Literary Fellowship and Residency from the Bronx Writers’ Center, and have been nominated twice for The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses. My story “Monkey Heaven” was named one of the Best Short Stories Published Online in 2008, by the judges of the Million Writers Award.

When I’m not trying to smash the system via subversive and sometimes-smutty stories, I’m trying to smash the system by organizing poor people to fight collectively for social justice. At my day job, I coordinated the writing of a major report that has been made required reading in urban planning courses at Columbia University—and has been banned in New York State prisons. I’m also a member of the Board of Directors of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.

If you like - or hate - any of my work, you should definitely write to me:

samjmiller79 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com

Or send a friend request to my FACEBOOK PAGE.

And if you’re into that sort of thing, you can periodically check out what I’m fascinated by, at my delicious page

For even more silly information about me, here is an interview I conducted with myself: