Mr. Steve Miller
Professor
Coordinator, MFA in the Book Arts Program
Professor Miller was born in FondDuLac, Wisconsin in 1950, 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, Mr. 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.
Professor 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. Mr. 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, Mr. 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.
Updated August 10, 2004.
Education
B.A., Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1972.
Teaching at SLIS
BA 520 Elements of Printing (Printing I)
BA 521 Printing and Typography (Printing II)
BA 522 Printing and Publishing (Printing III)
BA 523 Printing and Publishing (Printing IV)