Susan L. Miller

Susan L. Miller is the author of Communion of Saints (Paraclete) and has poems in the anthologies Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion and Spirituality (Sibling Rivalry) and St. Peter’s B-List: Contemporary Poems Inspired by the Saints (Ave Maria.) She has published poetry in Iowa Review, Meridian, Commonweal, Image, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, and others. She is Art Editor of Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, and teaches creative writing at Rutgers University. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her family.

Susan has spent much of her adult life traveling in Mexico, studying fine and folk art and examining the relationship between death and Mexican art practices. She is writing a nonfiction book about death in Mexican art and culture, and has spent time discussing art and film practices with Mexican artists and scholars including photographer Graciela Iturbide, filmmaker Demetrio Bilbatua, and art historian, translator, and writer Claudia Canales. She continues to draw inspiration from Mexican artists including Iturbide, Frida Kahlo, Romualdo Garcia, and Juan O’Gorman, among many others.

Susan studied poetry at UVA and NYU, in many institutions in New York City, including the 92nd St. Y, Poets House, and the Continuing Education department at the New School, and was a student of Gregory Orr, Rita Dove, Sharon Olds, Agha Shahid Ali, Mark Doty, and Marie Ponsot. She has studied La Crónica with Javier Sinay and the personal essay with Emily Bernard, and continues to study and teach poetry and nonfiction.

She is the personal assistant to Mark Doty, and with Doty,  she runs an online program for poets. She has also taught at the Hank Center for Catholic Studies at Loyola College and served as the Writer in Residence for the National College Preaching in Action Conference.

Photo credit: Iris Mizrahi.