Friday September 13 , 2013
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Caroline Miller (Author) - Heart Land

I want to acknowledge Schiel & Denver for the wonderful opportunity and help they've given me. Being an American girl at heart, I was delighted to work with a book publishing team who warmly welcome new U.S. literature.

As Seen On National TV

Former Oregon county commissioner, Caroline Miller, is a professional writer who has published numerous short stories in publications as diverse as Children's Digest, Grit and Tales of the Talisman. Her short story, 'Under the Bridge and Beneath the Moon,' was dramatized for radio in Oregon and Washington. Caroline taught English at both the high school and university levels, headed a Labor union for five years and successfully ran for public office three times. Caroline holds a B.A. and M.A.T. degree from Reed College and an M.A. in Literature from Northern Arizona University where she graduated with honors.

With Schiel & Denver, Miller published her debut novel Heart Land, which became a hit as a patriotic memoir about a boy growing up in rural Ohio between 1930 and 1940. Following the book's success, Caroline was interviewed on both local and national TV, including the Trinity Broadcasting Network, and interviewed on the Lars Larsson radio show.

  • Visit Caroline's Author Website

Watch one of Caroline's TV appearances for 'Heart Land' (2009) published by Schiel & Denver:

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Caroline Miller speaks about the Compelling Story behind Heart Land...

I wrote Heart Land during the past few years because I wanted to remind myself and others of what’s good about being an American. Right or wrong, like most of my countrymen, I felt the United States had taken a bad turn recently in our relationship with the world. The face we were showing wasn’t the face that I loved and honored.

As a young woman, I spent several years traveling and living in Europe and Africa, and I while I loved every place I stayed and cannot say the word “Dunkirk,” without tearing up in admiration for our plucky English “cousins,” there is openness in America, a willingness to be vulnerable that I wanted to honor.  Many times people from other cultures have shared with me their surprise at how blunt we are as a nation. Our politics is tantamount to mud wrestling, our free press proclaims our every misstep; we’re a loud, brash culture, if one can call it a culture, and given the opportunity, we’ll tell the uncensored story of our lives to any stranger who will listen.. No, there’s nothing reticent about Americans.  We’re ugly all right, but we want to be loved anyway.

And that, if I may be so immodest, is not only our vulnerability but also our strength. We want to embrace and be embraced; so we are always experimenting and digesting what we’ve learned. We live in the present because we haven’t much past.  Without the glue of a mutual history, sometimes we tear ourselves apart.  But we pull ourselves together again with renewed hope and a fresh vitality. I suppose we never will find our equilibrium for long, given our hodgepodge of disparate races, religions and traditions.  We’ll keep on changing to accommodate our cacophony of views. But, I love that we keep trying to bring everyone into the tent… even if it takes a while.  That’s my Heart Land.

Other works by Caroline Miller

  • Fiction

"The Christmas Eve of Doubting Thomas," 1989 Young American

"Under the Bridge and Beneath the Moon" 1989 Childrens Digest

"Yearnings" 1994 Oregon English Journal

"Saying Goodbye" 1996 The Advocate

"The Summer of the Burlap Bag" 2000 Grab a Nickel

"Bodacious Scurvy" 2000 Caprice

"The Christmas Doll" 2003 Grit

"Grimahlka" Tales of the Talisman 3 / 007

"Proverbs" Mosaic June 2007, 46th edition

  • Non-Fiction

"Elements of Expository Writing" Portland Public Schools

"Guidelines for Board of Equalization" - Multnomah County

  • Drama/Play

"Woman on the Scarlet Beast" Two dramatic readings in Oregon and California (work in progress)

Semi-finalist in competition JAWS

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