Miller received an M.A. degree from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. She taught at USC and The Pennsylvania State University before coming to the University of Texas at Austin. A past chair of the Performance Studies Division of the National Communication Association, Miller is a Professor in the Performance as Public Practice program. She is the co-editor of Voices Made Flesh: Performing Women's Autobiography (Wisconsin, 2003), the author of a novel, The Fool's Journey (Winedale Publishing, 2002), and co-editor of an edited collection of essays on performative writing: The Green Window: Proceedings of the Giant City Conference on Performative Writing (Southern Illinois Press, 2001).

Miller's play, "Passenger on the Ship of Fools" (with Laura Furman), based on the life and work of Katherine Anne Porter, was presented at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs in June, 2002 with Kathleen Chalfant as Porter and at Louisiana State University in October, 2002 with Mary Frances HopKins. Miller is currently touring four performances at universities, theatres, art museums, and chautauquas: Gertrude Stein as Gertrude Stein; Edith Wharton: Inside the House of Fiction; Edith Wharton and Henry James: A Literary Friendship (with John Anderson); and Katherine Anne Porter: The Grandchild of a Lost War.

Research interests include autobiographical performance, solo performance and performance art, gender and performance, performative writing and adaptation of texts for stage and screen.

Current projects include writing a libretto (with Laura Furman) for an opera version of 'Passenger on the Ship of Fools' and directing a performance for Arts & Letters Live at the Dallas Art Museum. Her new novel "Death of a Department Chair" was published in October 2006 (University of Wisconsin Press/Terrace Books).