G. Wayne Miller - 1954
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I. Background
When he isn't keeping the squirrels out of his birdfeeder or driving his old Volvo up the Atlantic coast, G. Wayne Miller divides his time between the Providence Journal and his study in Pascoag, Rhode Island. The affable Miller combines investigative journalism with the easy-read of a novelist, making us insiders in the inaccessible realms of corporate restructuring in Toy Wars, the fast paced medical surgical unit in The King of Hearts and The Work of Human Hands, and the cleverly oblique young relationships in Coming of Age.
Named for his grandfather, George, he was born in Melrose, Massachusetts to middle class parents of colonial and Irish Catholic descent. He grew up in a bedroom community of Boston, was educated in parochial and Catholic prep schools, and thought he wanted to play hockey for the Boston Bruins.
In an interview published in the Providence Journal, Miller said, "I was also interested in writing...Reading was very important in my family."1 As a child he wrote "little snippets," but in ninth grade his teacher got him past "I like writing" to "I really like writing." Yet, he was interested in medicine and entered Harvard thinking he would become a neurosurgeon. It lasted one week. Selected for a creative writing course, he knew he wouldn't be a doctor, turning instead to the exuberant college exploration of philosophies and unabashedly liberal politics.
Following graduation from Harvard, he found a "gung-ho" enthusiasm that took him from working for WBZ-TV in Boston, to trekking through Europe, working as an airline baggage handler, and fretting through freelancing until he wrote his first "solid piece of journalism" for the Boston Globe: "Can You Build a Home Atomic Bomb?"
He continued to report for small newspapers, when he landed an interview with The Providence Journal—"A writers' newspaper...where you can make a mark in writing, where writing—the craft of telling stories—is valued." And he had found his style: immersion writing. In describing this style, Miller said, "It means you have to insert yourself into places you don't belong. As an outsider, I don't belong in a Fortune 500 company, I don't belong in the personal life of a teenage boy, I don't belong inside an operating room in the Children's Hospital in Boston....I get to wage a campaign to get in there, to find out what's really going on." 2
Many of his books were first published as an investigative series in the Providence Journal and then turned into books. When asked to comment on his craft, Miller said, "When I'm not writing, I'm thinking. A lot of the writing process is not actually pen to paper...A lot of thinking, trying to get to the truth of the matter."3 A lot of his time is also devoted to his hometown, where he serves as chairman of the library and lives with Alexis, his wife and also an author, and their children. He and his wife are in the process of establishing the Eggemoggin Writing Center near Blue Hill, Maine.
With the style of a reporter and the vitality of a master suspense writer, there is a personal energy in the books of G. Wayne Miller that keeps the reader's fingers turning pages, wanting to know what happens next.
II. Trekking with G. Wayne Miller
1954: Born, June 12, 1954, Melrose MA; grandfather: George Wayne Miller; father: Roger Miller, an airplane mechanic "infatuated with flight"; mother: Mary Maraghey Miller; sisters: MaryLynne Wright and Lynda Twombly; grew up: Wakefield, MA; education: parochial school 1-8
1972: Graduated, St. John's Prep, Danvers, MA, 9-12
1975: Receptionist for WBZ-TV Boston
1976: Graduated, Harvard University; toured Europe
1981: Providence Journal: investigative series, reviews for Sunday Books section
1999: Lives in a 100-year-old farmhouse in rural Burrville, village of Pascoag, Rhode Island. Wife: Alexis Magner Miller, home editor of The Providence Journal and author of two
books; children: Rachel, Katy, and Cal; serves as chairman of the Jessee Smith Memorial Library
2000: Establishing Eggemoggin Writing Center, Blue Hill, Maine
III. Awards
Miller has received what he describes as "a bunch of awards."4 This includes the American Society of Newspaper Editors prize for feature writing.
IV. Works by Miller
Miller's first story was written in fifth grade: "A story set under the ocean with sea creatures, who had a little community, a little home, it was a fantasy." This was followed by the co-editing of his high school newspaper. Below is a list of his professional works:
Magazines
Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine; American Fantasy. A love of early Stephen King prompted early publications of horror/mystery stories and inclusion in short story and paperback collections.
Newspapers
The Boston Globe
The Wakefield Daily Item (MA) - freelance
The North Adams Transcript (MA) - reporter
The Cape Cod Times (MA) - reporter
The Providence Journal (RI) - reporter, reviewer, feature series 1981-current
Books
First book, unpublished horror novel modeled after Jamestown, RI Island where he lived
Thunder Rise (William Morrow 1989): "My daughters think it's cool, which is good enough for me."
The Work of Human Hands (Random House, 1993): Based on Hardy Endren, chief of
surgery at Boston's Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School professor.
http://www.gwaynemiller.com/hands-ex.htm
Coming of Age
(1995): "It's set inside an ordinary American public high school...ordinary, that is, until the craziness starts."
http://www.gwaynemiller.com/coa-ex.htm
Toy Wars (1998): "Toy Wars brought me to yet another place normally closed to journalists, never mind the public at large: deep inside a Fortune 500 company, Hasbro Inc.,
manufacturer of G.I. Joe, Mr. Potato Head, Batman, Star Wars and many other toys." The book focuses on the restructuring of Hasbro.
http://www.gwaynemiller.com/toys-ex.htm
The King of Hearts (February 2000): "...the astonishingly unconventional guys who created open-heart surgery."
http://www.gwaynemiller.com/koh-ex.htm
V. Footnotes Conversation and Correspondence: 10/21/99 1. Interview, by Brian C. Jones, Providence Journal, p. 8
2. Ibid., p. 17-18 3. Ibid., p. 20 4. Autobiography, 3 pages: 5. Ibid., p. 3 VI. Other Sources G. Wayne Miller Home Page
. Includes interviews, brief description of his works, and excerpts of his writing, as well. It also gives you the time and weather forecast in Providence:
Conversation and Correspondence: G. Wayne Miller to Susan Huetteman, 10-21-99 This essay was submitted by Susan Huetteman, a retired teacher in Rhode Island.