Millner, Caille 1979-

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Millner, Caille 1979-

PERSONAL:

Born 1979, in San Jose, CA. Education: Graduated from Harvard University.

ADDRESSES:

Office—San Francisco Chronicle, 901 Mission St., San Francisco CA 94103.

CAREER:

Journalist and writer. Pacific News Service, youth division writer; San Jose Mercury News, San Jose, CA, reporter, editorial writer, and "eye teen reviewer"; Newsweek, South Africa, special correspondent, 2001-03.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Rona Jaffe Fiction Award; National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts award; National Press Club Award; Ella Lyman Cabot Trust; New York Black Journalists' Association Award; Berta Ledecky fellow, Harvard magazine, 2000-01.

WRITINGS:

(With Oral Lee Brown) The Promise: How One Woman Made Good on Her Extraordinary Pact to Send a Classroom of First Graders to College, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2005.

The Golden Road: Notes on My Gentrification, Penguin (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor to periodicals, including Newsweek, Essence, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Art & Understanding, Fader, San Francisco Examiner,Raconteur, West, Diversity & Distinction, Harvard Magazine, and San Jose Mercury News. Member of editorial board, San Francisco Chronicle.

SIDELIGHTS:

While still in high school in San Jose, CA, Caille Millner wrote an article for her school newspaper about the unfair treatment of African American students at the school. When the story was picked up and published in the San Jose Mercury News, Millner faced difficulties from school officials. However, this story got the teen the exposure she needed and the confidence to push ahead. After graduating from Harvard University, Millner worked for the Pacific News Service and the San Jose Mercury News, as a special correspondent in South Africa for Newsweek, and now serves on the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle.

In 2005 Millner had her first book, The Promise: How One Woman Made Good on Her Extraordinary Pact to Send a Classroom of First Graders to College, published by Doubleday. Millner assisted in writing Oral Lee Brown's story about a moment that changed the woman's life. Brown was troubled when a young girl in her East Oakland neighborhood asked for money. When she went down to the local elementary school to find the girl, she came up empty-handed. She did, however, see a class of first-grade students and, on a whim, made a promise to the class that if those twenty-three students graduated from high school, she would pay their college tuitions. Earning only 45,000 dollars a year, Brown saved up money to keep her promise, later creating her own foundation to raise funds for the effort. By the time those students graduated from high school, Brown had lived up to her promise and nineteen of the students chose to attend college with Brown's assistance. Booklist contributor Vanessa Bush called the story "engaging." A contributor to Publishers Weekly said that "the book is didactic in its approach, yet should inspire parents and teachers." Robin M. Dasher-Alston, writing in the Black Issues Book Review, was "in awe of this remarkable woman and the ‘babies’ she mentored to adulthood."

In 2007, Millner published her memoir, The Golden Road: Notes on My Gentrification. Telling of Millner's search for her personal and cultural identity, the book tells of her upbringing as an African American in a Chicano neighborhood, attending a mostly-white high school, and not fitting in with other African Americans while attending Harvard University. Bush, again writing in Booklist, noted that "Millner's candid, urgent questions about racial identity will hit home with strong readers." In a Library Journal review, M.C. Duhig commented that "Millner makes her life thus far compelling reading and an outstanding addition to a crowded field." Duhig added that she writes "mesmerizing prose" with "wry objectivity." Concluding an article in the Black Issues Book Review, Cora Daniels stated: "In the end, whenever Millner truly finds herself, she has the makings of being one of those powerful writers that we all will be thankful for reading."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Millner, Caille, The Golden Road: Notes on My Gentrification, Penguin (New York, NY), 2007.

PERIODICALS

Black Issues Book Review, May 1, 2005, Robin M. Dasher-Alston, review of The Promise: How One Woman Made Good on Her Extraordinary Pact to Send a Classroom of First Graders to College, p. 64; May 1, 2007, Cora Daniels, review of The Golden Road, p. 44.

Booklist, February 1, 2005, Vanessa Bush, review of The Promise, p. 933; February 1, 2007, Vanessa Bush, review of The Golden Road, p. 27.

Columbia Journalism Review, November-December, 2002, Liz Cox, "Ten Young Writers on the Rise," p. 44.

Essence, March 1, 2007, Mika Ono Benedyk, review of The Golden Road, p. 76.

Kirkus Reviews, January 15, 2005, review of The Promise, p. 96; December 1, 2006, review of The Golden Road, p. 1210.

Library Journal, December 1, 2004, Barbara Hoffert, review of The Promise, p. 90; January 1, 2007, M.C. Duhig, review of The Golden Road, p. 120.

New York Times Book Review, February 25, 2007, Amy Finnerty, review of The Golden Road, p. 8.

Publishers Weekly, February 28, 2005, review of The Promise, p. 52; December 18, 2006, review of The Golden Road, p. 57.