Essence best selling and NAACP Literary Award Nominee, Karen E. Quinones Miller was born and raised in Harlem in 1958. Miller dropped out of school during the eighth grade, and spent the majority of her teenage years experiencing street life first-hand. After getting a job as a police attendant in New York City's Midtown North police precinct, Miller became friends with a number of police officers who persuaded her that the life she was living could lead to an early death. So at age 22, Miller joined the Navy and after spending five years in the Navy, Miller married, had a child and divorced all within a two-year period. At age 29, she got a secretarial job with The Philadelphia Daily News, but after three years complaining about the paper's coverage of people living below the poverty level she quit and started taking journalism classes at Temple University. After graduation she became a newspaper reporter, and worked for the Associated Press, The Norfolk Virginian Pilot, and lastly for The Philadelphia Inquirer where she was employed for nine years. She also worked as a correspondent for People Magazine from 1996 to 1999.Miller wrote Satin Doll in 1999, and after many unsuccessful attempts at finding a publisher, decided to publish it herself. She sold 28,000 copies on her own, and Satin Doll wound up on the Essence Bestseller's List for two months. Publishing rights were sold to Simon & Schuster (via auction) for six figures. Miller went on to write five other Essence Bestselling novels for Simon & Schuster, Warner Books, and Grand Central Books: I'm Telling, Using What You Got (both were main selections for Black Expressions Book Club), Ida B. (which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work - Fiction.), Satin Nights and Passin'. Best selling author Kwan Foye has often publicly referred to Miller as "The Aretha Franklin of Black Publishing." Miller, who is included in the book Literary Divas: The Top 100+ Most Admired African-American Women In Literature, often gives publishing and self-publishing seminars in her home and Philadelphia, and is the CEO of Oshun Publishing Company. Miller has been often cited for her willingness to help aspiring authors, and Essence best selling authors Daaimah S. Poole, and Miasha are just two of the young writers who consider Miller their mentor. Miller's new book, An Angry A** Black Woman, will be published by Karen Hunter Books in 2011.