Stories are Bags in Which Humans Carry Ideas and Culture Across Time
An Interview with Professor Elizabeth Carolyn Miller
In this interview, Elizabeth Carolyn Miller discusses her thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity.
I publish under my full name, Elizabeth Carolyn Miller, but everyone calls me Liz. I was born in Milwaukee Wisconsin and moved to California in 2008, when I was 34 years old, to take a job at UC Davis. At Davis, I am a professor of English who teaches classes in 19th- and early-20th-century literature of the British imperial world as well as in the environmental humanities. I also teach children’s literature. Before coming to Davis, I taught at universities in Ohio, Michigan, and Oklahoma. I have twin boys who were born in 2012.
Why do we write?
Writing is a form of communication that is intended to last and to reach a wide audience. When people write, at least beyond the everyday writing tasks of emails and shopping lists, they are searching for an audience bigger than their own lives — people they don’t know, people who live somewhere else, people who haven’t been born yet.
