Cathleen Miller

Education

Pennsylvania State University.

Career

She is also the author of Desert Flower (1998), co-written with Waris Dirie—a Somali nomad turned model turned activist—who shared her experience with female genital mutilation to bring about global awareness. The book has been cited by the United Nations as having played a major role in the advocacy against female genital mutilation. Desert Flower was made into a feature film in 2009 and released in 34 countries.

The print version sold over 11 million copies worldwide and has been translated into more than 55 languages.

Cathleen Miller was born in the United States but has traveled widely in pursuit of research, adventure, and experience. "She has interviewed diplomats and heads of state on five continents, patients in an Addis Ababa Hospital, rape camp survivors in Kosovo, and midwives in the mountains of East Timor.

Miller earned her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Pennsylvania State University in 1997 and has been teaching Creative Writing at San Jose State University since 2004. Miller co-founded Wild Writing Women, a group of women writers who travel worldwide and come together to write their stories of adventure.

Her work has appeared in many magazines and newspapers in the United States, including the San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Los Angeles Times.

Achievements

• 2005 Lowell Thomas Gold Prize, Society of American Travel Writers, Best Online Travel Magazine (Editor-in-Chief) 2005 North American Travel Journalists Association Award, Best Online Travel Magazine (Editor-in-Chief).

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Birdhouse Chronicles : Surviving the Joys of Country Life

    ( Part memoir, part travelogue, part nature writing--an i...)

  • Wild Writing Women: Stories of World Travel

    (Gone are the days when women stayed at home, while men di...)

  • The Birdhouse Chronicles: Surviving the Joys of Country Life by Miller, Cathleen (2004) Paperback

    (1st)

  • Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Journey Of A Desert Nomad
  • Wild Writing Women: Stories of World Travel by Lisa Alpine (2002-04-01)
  • The Birdhouse Chronicles : Surviving the Joys of Country Life by Cathleen Miller (2002-06-01)
  • Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad

Membership

She is also a member of the Bay Area Travel Writers organization.