Anesa Miller, "Author, Deep Thinker, Nature Lover," is now a BG summer resident flitting to
points West in colder times. She describes herself as a recovering academic of currently unfashionable
Russian studies. She has learned to live happily ever after by, among others things, immersing herself
in creative writing. Novel readers be happy.
"Our Orbit," a novel of struggling family relationships, and "To Go Boldly Forth," a
series of meditative essays, are self published products, both available at Calico, Sage and Thyme, on
Amazon and at www.AnesaMiller.com. Miller, through years of writing and revising, says she has come to
love the families of her imagination and is pursuing ways to introduce them to more of the reading
public. In today’s changing publishing world, creativity is essential in writing and publishing.
Miller is now working with Booktrope, a publishing cooperative located in Seattle, WA. A board accepts or
rejects titles. The author then selects a team of professionals to work on design, editing, production
and marketing, with net proceeds being divided. The physically revised "Our Orbit" will be
coming out in June, and will be available through the regular on line sources, with additional promotion
through book fairs and the like.
The book deserve a wider readership. These are credible, real people. They live their daily lives while
struggling with such universal issues as parenting, finding daily human balances within marriages, and
figuring out individual relationships with God.
This is Appalachian Ohio. Cincinnati can be found on a map. North Milton exists on the page. It is a
pleasant university town not unlike Bowling Green, with a variety of populations. The class status of
the Levi Walker family is quickly apparent through telling details of cars, dinner menus, speech
cadences, constant references to The Lord, and the layout of The Friendly Village Mobile Home Park.
This is a family of literal Biblical Fundamentalism, and the effects are different for each. Mother
Emmaline is accepting, worried, but happy enough.
Father Levi uses the Bible to rule, judge others, and to justify breaking the laws of a godless
government. Elder son Isaac is cool and escapes through marriage and distance. Fourteen year old
Rachelle is in full rebellion from all the rules and negativity, while nine year old Mariam pretty much
goes along to get along. Seventeen year old Josh takes his Bible to the extreme. He is bright enough to
quote chapter and verse to his own argumentative advantage, self righteous enough to quell his
humanity, and has all the makings of a young Elmer Gantry. He is an interesting, disturbing young man.
The Fletcher family is solidly middle class – Rick is an assistant High School principal, and Deanne is a
stay-at-home mom of two children. The two families become inter-twined when Mariam becomes their foster
daughter.
They soon learn, that even with the best of attentions, Fostering is not so easy, and can be downright
disruptive.
"Our Orbit" is a story of good intentions that sometimes go awry, sometimes turn out fine, and
sometimes have unexpected consequences – just as in real life. Contemporary questions about abortion,
church, dealing with well-meaning, over-regulated bureaucracies are themes woven into the stories. There
is drama, but no melodrama.
Putting down or condescending to fundamentalists or religion is not a theme; exploring modern church
going experience is. The Pastor Erasmus Lloyd and the congregation of Holy Redeemer Tabernacle show a
compassionate and loving side, despite the histrionics. It is not the church format that matters, it is
the individual’s use and understanding that does. Finding the right church is a difficult, and at times
hilarious, search for the church going Fletchers.
Miller writes about people who are recognizable and ordinary, but within every "ordinary"
person – man, woman or child -there is a struggle to make life meaningful… to look beyond and
understand their "orbit."
