About Tekla Miller

Tekla Dennison Miller is a former prison warden who managed two prisons simultaneously (a men's maximum and a multi-level women's) outside Detroit, Michigan. Her published memoir, The Warden Wore Pink, is about her twenty-year career in corrections. Ms. Miller also taught children in South Central LA after the riots, worked with mentally challenged enlisted men while employed with the US Special Services in Germany, was the first female probation officer in Oakland County, Michigan and the supervisor of the first prison camp for women in Michigan. Ms. Miller is a social activist, writer and national speaker focusing on women's issues, juvenile and criminal justice reform.

She has had several nonfiction articles published in these areas in Corrections Today Magazine, The Durango Herald, The Detroit Free Press Sunday Magazine, Writes of Passage, Every Woman has a Story, View From the Trenches: A Manual for Wardens by Wardens, Fortitude: True Stories of True Grit, Chicken Soup for the Prisoner's Soul, Senior Magazine, Active Times, Frontiers of Justice Volume I: the Death Penalty, Frontiers of Justice Volume II: Coddling or Common Sense? (she co-edited Volume II), Charity: True Stories of Giving and Receiving.

The Warden Wore Pink in its third printing is used as required reading in criminal justice and women's studies courses at several colleges and universities. She also has had articles about dogs in prison published in Good Dog and Dog Fancy Magazines. A second memoir, A Bowl of Cherries, was released in January 2003 and her first novel, Life Sentences, was released in August 2005. Ms. Miller has appeared on National Public Radio's Fresh Air with Terry Gross and has been featured in many radio, newspaper and journal interviews including, WJR Radio in Detroit, KSUT Public Radio, KIUP and KDUR (Fort Lewis College) in Durango, The Christian Science Monitor, Ann Arbor News, Detroit Metropolitan Woman, Corrections Professional, Detroit Metro Times, Detroit Free Press, Sunday Parade, The Daily Times, Farmington, New Mexico and the Durango Herald.

In 1999-2001 Ms. Miller was a technical consultant for Granada Entertainment/TNT on a TV movie and series about a woman warden and for NBC's news special about women prisoners. As an adjunct professor, Ms. Miller teaches a course on Prisons and Prisoners. In 2001 she was a contestant on the TV quiz show "To Tell the Truth." Ms. Miller was among the women in law enforcement and criminal justice honored by the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 1997. In 2001 The Criminal Justice Women of Michigan again honored Ms. Miller with the Josephine Davis Community Service Award. In 2004 she was again honored with the Distinguished Alumni Award at Cazenovia College, NY. In May 2007 Ms Miller was the commencement speaker at Cazenovia College and received an honory doctor in humane letters.

Ms. Miller is the past president of the Board of Directors for the Southwest Youth Corps and is a member of the American Correctional Association's Women in Corrections and Juvenile Justice, North American Association of Wardens and Superintendents, Association of Women Executives in Corrections, American Correctional Association, Association of American University Women, La Plata county Women's Resource Center, League of Women Voters, College Guild Advisory Board, National Association of Women Writers, Sisters in Crime, and Mystery Writers of America. She is a past member of the La Plata County Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee and Jail Task Force. Ms. Miller received her AA from Cazenovia College, Cazenovia, New York, BA from the University of California at Los Angeles and her MA from Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan. She resides in Colorado with her husband and two golden retrievers.