HENRY MILLSTEIN

I'm Brooklyn-born, but a Left Coaster by choice and adoption; after some years living in various places in Oregon and California, I'm now happily settled on California's Redwood Coast in the city of Eureka.

 

I write because I have to. Whenever I try to move away, words and stories always call me back.

 

I'm blessed with a wonderful family, both nuclear and extended. My wife is a United Methodist pastor and my daughter is Communications Coordinator for the President Pro Tem of the California State Senate.

 

Which reminds me: I'm surely among the world's most overeducated person. I have a B.A. in classics (Latin and Greek) from Reed College, an M.F.A. in playwriting from Carnegie-Mellon University, and a Ph.D. (Permanent head Damage) in Jewish Studies from a joint program at the University of California Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union. Oh, and my wife Rebecca has a Ph.D. in theology from the GTU—in fact, she's the one who dragged me down from Oregon to California.

 

I'm grateful too for the decades I have spent with the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs in Oregon, helping them develop a program to maintain their languages and culture; I'm currently working on a dictionary of the language they call Ichishkiin.

 

And I'm also blessed to be working for Islamic Networks Group, a Muslim-founded interfaith organization working to combat bigotry and racism in all their forms.

 

Finally—though this should really go at the top—I'm a practicing Catholic Christian and a passionate social justice advocate and organizer. And here in Eureka I have also become involved with the local Jewish community, rebuilding a connection to my Jewish heritage.

 

I could say more about myself, but you'll be better off reading my books, the first of which, Speaker for the God, is now available.