Former University of Iowa professor Michael Miller will read from his new historical fiction, The High Bridge. Author Sally Roesch Wagner calls The High Bridge “A highly engaging and thought-provoking journey into what might have resulted if suffragist Matilda Joslyn Gage and future president Grover Cleveland, who lived in the upstate village of Fayetteville at different times, had instead known each other and become friends. By endowing them with a twenty-first-century social justice consciousness, the author skillfully invites us to consider the issues they faced, which we still do today.”

Michael Miller was born in a small town in New Jersey similar to Fayetteville NY. Like Grover Cleveland, he played baseball, delivered the daily newspaper, and tramped through the woods. Like Matilda Joslyn Gage, he learned to respect people regardless of their backgrounds, to stand for the rights of individuals, and to learn from people, books, and observation. These views, aspirations, and activities shaped his time as a professor at the University of Iowa as he promoted research, inter-disciplinary cooperation, and community. He is also the author of Matilda and Grover Battle Learned Ignorance, winner of Firebird and Feathered Quill Awards and semi-finalist for Chanticleer International Goethe Award.