Sam J. Miller
Sam J. Miller is a science fiction, fantasy and horror short fiction author. His stories have appeared in publications such as Clarkesworld, Asimov's Science Fiction, and Lightspeed, along with over fifteen "year's best" story collections. A finalist for multiple Nebula Awards along with the World Fantasy and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Awards, he won the 2013 Shirley Jackson Award for his short story "57 Reasons for the Slate Quarry Suicides" and the 2019 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Blackfish City.
Life
Sam J. Miller grew up in Hudson, New York, where his family ran a butcher shop. With his husband, he currently lives in New York City, where he works as a community organizer for a homeless organization.Writing
Miller studied writing as part at the 2012 Clarion Workshop under authors Holly Black, Cassandra Clare and Ted Chiang.Miller began regularly publishing his short stories in 2013 with "57 Reasons for the Slate Quarry Suicides" in Nightmare Magazine. The story later won the 2013 Shirley Jackson Award for best short fiction. His other stories have been published in magazines such as Clarkesworld, Asimov's Science Fiction, Apex Magazine, and Lightspeed. His stories have been reprinted in over fifteen "year's best" story collections and have been a finalist for multiple Nebula Awards along with the World Fantasy and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Awards.
Miller states that he writes "speculative fiction because that's how the world looks to me. Life is magic. Human society is horror. The world is science fiction." While Miller deals with politics in his work as a community organizer, he says that "arguing a political point is a pretty good way to kill a story. But I do think it's possible to explore in fiction the issues that are important to us. That's the writing that excites me the most."
Miller's prose has been called "evocative," "disturbing" and "grim stuff, but compelling."
Miller's young adult novel The Art of Starving was released by HarperCollins in July 2017. The novel is about a gay, bullied teenage boy who believes that extreme hunger awakens supernatural abilities and is rooted in Miller's own experience with an adolescent eating disorder. It was a finalist for the World Science Fiction Society award for Best Young Adult novel and won the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy in 2018.
His first novel for adults, Blackfish City, was released in April 2018 by Ecco Press.
Awards and nominations
- "57 Reasons for the Slate Quarry Suicides" won the 2013 Shirley Jackson Award for best short fiction.
- "We Are the Cloud" was a finalist for the 2014 Nebula Award and the 2015 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award.
- "When Your Child Strays from God" was a finalist for the 2015 Nebula Award.
- "The Heat of Us: Notes Toward an Oral History" was a finalist for the 2016 World Fantasy Award for best short fiction.
- "Things with Beards" was a finalist for the 2016 Nebula Award.
- Blackfish City won the 2018 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best science fiction novel of the year.
Novels
- The Art of Starving
- Blackfish City
- Destroy All Monsters
Short fiction
| Title | Year | First published | Reprinted/collected | Notes |
| 57 reasons for the Slate Quarry suicides | 2013 | Nightmare Magazine | 2013 Shirley Jackson Award for Short Fiction | |
| We are the Cloud | 2014 | Lightspeed, August 2014 | Novelette | |
| When your child strays from God | 2015 | Clarkesworld | ||
| The heat of us : notes toward an oral history | 2015 | Clarkesworld | ||
| Things with beards | 2016 | Clarkesworld | ||
| The future of hunger in the age of programmable matter | 2017 |