It's hard to believe that you're only two years away from 40 when you were just a kid reporter, like Jimmy Olson, when I met you. In those wild days, you were still boozing it up, dating strippers and lighting up a doobie before writing an investigative news story.But then you broke up with Brandi, sobered up, stopped being a nudist and started dating that nice, decent girl reporter, Allie. And you dropped all your old chopper-riding crowd like we were hot taters.
I'm a writer and a writing professor. My first book, Cross-X: A Turbulent, Triumphant Season with an Inner-City Debate Squad, was named one of the best books of 2006 by Publishers Weekly, The Chicago Tribune and Amazon.com. I live in an old house in the Deep South with my wife, two dogs and four cats. I collect wonderful records.
A Chicago TribuneBest Book of the Year
A Publisher's WeeklyBest Book of the Year
One of Kansas City Star's 100 Noteworthy Books of the Year
Winner of the William Rockhill Nelson Award for Nonfiction
Winner of the Harry Chapin Media Award
. . .
Forget the nerdy reputation that debate has. Instead think of a scenario as exciting as a sports game with high stakes like triumphing over racism. bad politics and abject poverty... An important, thoughtful and provocative look at race and class in America.
- The Boston Globe
Joe Miller's enthusiasm is infectious and the plot creates the suspense of a good courtroom thriller.
- Entertainment Weekly
The minute I finished Joe Miller's Cross-X, I held the book out in front of me -- amazed, rapturous, and hopeful... Miller's mesmerizing, vivid accounts of the debates will leave you crouched in your seat, holding your breath... An incredibly powerful, daringly hopeful book.
- Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Irresistible... Miller begins breezily but is soon deeply invested in the Central squad's mission to not only master the debate game on its own terms but revolutionize it with flashes of poetry and hip-hop wordplay... If all these kids could run things, Miller implies, imagine what could get done.
3 comments:
Happy birthday!
I didn't realize Saturday was your birthday, so happy belated, Joe!
It's hard to believe that you're only two years away from 40 when you were just a kid reporter, like Jimmy Olson, when I met you. In those wild days, you were still boozing it up, dating strippers and lighting up a doobie before writing an investigative news story.But then you broke up with Brandi, sobered up, stopped being a nudist and started dating that nice, decent girl reporter, Allie. And you dropped all your old chopper-riding crowd like we were hot taters.
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