Steve
Miller
Professor & Coordinator
M.F.A. in the Book Arts Program
School of Library and Information Studies
College of Communication and Information Sciences
Steve
was born in FondDuLac, Wisconsin and educated at The University
of Wisconsin-Madison. Having taken letterpress printing classes with Walter
Hamady of The Perishable Press, he founded Red Ozier Press in 1976—a
fine press devoted to publishing literary first editions in handmade limited
editions.
In 1979, Miller moved the Press to New York City where he and Ken Botnick refined bookmaking to an art, and achieved national prominence both for the craftsmanship of the books, and for the importance of texts they chose to publish—work by authors like William Faulkner, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Allen Ginsberg, as well as unknown writers and artists. The books have been widely exhibited and reviewed, and are in the collections of many libraries and private collections.
In 1988, The New York Public Library purchased the archive of the Red Ozier Press for its permanent collection—including all proofs and correspondence from over sixty publications. In October of 1993, the Humanities Gallery at Cooper Union in New York City was the site of a month-long retrospective exhibition of the work of the Red Ozier Press, which coincided with the publication of THE RED OZIER: A LITERARY FINE PRESS, 1976-1987, by Michael Peich, co-published by The New York Public Library and Yellow Barn Press.
Steve Miller came to The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa in 1988. He teaches letterpress printing, hand papermaking, and coordinates the MFA in the Book Arts Program. Although his primary focus at the university is in the teaching of traditional bookmaking, he is also the proprietor of Red Hydra Press and collaborates on various limited edition publishing projects with authors and artists. Steve Miller is a co-director of Paper and Book Intensive, a nationally-recognized annual series of summer workshops in the book arts. He is president of the Advisory Board of the Robert C. Williams American Museum of Papermaking in Atlanta, Georgia, and is a past president of the Friends of Dard Hunter, Inc., a group of artists, crafts persons, conservators and scientists (450 individuals and companies) devoted to the art and craft of hand papermaking and related book arts.
In the Spring of 2004, Miller traveled to Cuba with UA students and faculty to finish a bilingual limited edition book of the poems of US poet laureate (2001-2003) Billy Collins, collaborating with Cuban book artists. To date, there have been seven working visits to Cuba on various book projects, with another planned for the spring of 2007 to work with a new Collins poem and five Cuban artists.
Updated
March 2007.
stevemiller@bookarts.ua.edu