Donald Miller (author)


Donald "Don" Miller is an American author, public speaker, and business owner. He is the CEO of StoryBrand, a marketing company. He is also an author of personal essays and reflections about faith, God, and self-discovery. His first New York Times bestselling book was Blue Like Jazz.

Biography

At 21, Miller left his home in Pearland, Texas, and went to Portland, Oregon, where he owned a small Portland-based textbook publishing company called Coffee House Books. Miller became a New York Times Bestselling Author when he published Blue Like Jazz in 2003. In 2004, Miller released Searching For God Knows What, which discusses how the traditional understanding of the gospel of Jesus aligns with a theory of personality. In 2005, he released Through Painted Deserts, a republished version of his first book, Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance, originally published in 2000. In 2006, he wrote another book, To Own A Dragon, on his reflections on growing up without a father. Miller is also the founder of The Mentoring Project, a non-profit that partners with local churches to mentor fatherless young men. Miller's next book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, was released in late 2009.
In 2009, Miller served on a Presidential Advisory Council on Fatherhood and Healthy Families.
On November 30, 2013, Donald Miller married Elizabeth "Betsy" Miltenberger. They now live in Nashville, Tennessee.
In 2015, he published the book Scary Close, discussing his views and personal history of self-discovery and intimacy in relationships.
In 2015 Miller helped The Federation for Children create the Failing Our Kids campaign that lobbied state governments for school voucher programs. In early 2016 Miller consulted with Fox River Partnerships, an economic think tank in Illinois, to develop a messaging campaign for a new economic and tax plan called a Circulation Economy.
In 2017, he published the book Building a StoryBrand, on marketing and messaging. He presents a marketing framework inspired by principles of storytelling called the StoryBrand 7 Part Framework.

Published works

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance: Finding God on the Open Road, 2000 Note: republished as Through Painted DesertsBlue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality, 2003 Searching For God Knows What, 2004 Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road, 2005 To Own a Dragon: Reflections On Growing Up Without a Father, 2006 Note: expanded and republished as "Father Fiction"A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Fall 2009 Father Fiction: Chapters for a Fatherless Generation, 2010 Storyline: Finding Your Subplot in God's Story, 2012 Scary Close, 2015 Building a StoryBrand, 2017 Marketing Made Simple, 2020 Business Made Simple, 2021 Hero on a Mission: A Path to a Meaningful Life, 2022