Photo of Cathleen Miller and Charlotte Holmes from Author Cathleen Miller’s Facebook page.

PSU MFA Alum Cathleen Miller visited Penn State on January 29 to give a talk on her life as a writer and her experiences at Penn State and beyond, as well as to read several segments from books she has published and books she is working on. Cathleen also held a Q&A session in the class of Toby Thompson, one of her former advisers, where she offered advice on pursuing travel writing and the importance of persistence and aggression when it comes to getting published.

Among other texts, Cathleen read from The Birdhouse Chronicles, her published MFA thesis, which described the life she found when she moved from her competitive advertising job in San Fransisco to live in rural Pennsylvania with her husband. She has a keen eye for detail and her writing is just as funny and fresh as it is exalting and beautiful.  Cathleen also read from her book Desert Flower, the incredible true story of a nomad turned supermodel turned United Nations activist, which has sold over 11 million copies.