Miller’s first published young adult novel, The Story That Cannot Be Told, penned under the name J. “I realized very quickly that I had a different novel to write,” she says. Having become friends with her new coworkers from Romania, Miller decided to write a fantasy novel set in Eastern Europe and inspired by Romanian folklore and fairy tales however, when talking with one friend for research, Miller heard the friend’s story as a young girl living in Communist Romania. Jessica MillerĪfter teaching English as a second language for several years in Japan, Miller became a kindergarten teacher there at an international elementary school, where the idea for her first novel came to light. The only reason we could afford it is because locals thought it was haunted,” Miller says. “For five years, we lived as expatriates in a big, old Japanese house with straw mats on the floor, sliding paper doors and a quaint little garden.
At graduation, she received the prestigious President’s Award, given to the graduate with the highest grade-point average.Īfter earning her Bachelor of Arts in English in 2009, Miller moved to Japan with her now-husband Dustin, having fallen in love with the country after spending a holiday in a friend’s hometown.
She did all this while working for the Student Resource Center and summer youth programs. “I loved books as a child because, in them, anything could happen, and the idea of being a person who could create anything out of nothing at all felt very much like magic,” says writer Jessica Miller, when discussing her lifelong passion for her craft.Ī young child with a creative mind, Miller knew before she could even read that she wanted to be a writer-she wanted to tell stories to others just as her parents told stories to her.Īn alumna of UT Southern (UTS) and UT Chattanooga (UTC) and an adjunct instructor of English at both institutions, Miller was a Barton Honors Scholar on campus during her undergraduate career, as well as president and vice president of multiple clubs, including drama club, Sigma Tau Delta and Gamma Beta Phi.
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