When Madeline Miller was a child, her mother read her The Iliad and The Odyssey as bedtime stories. Her fascination with the ancient world didn’t wane, but she says there was always something about the epic tales of Homer and his compatriots that bothered her: the women’s voices were almost nonexistent. Miller’s latest novel, Circe, was an instant No. 1 New York Times bestseller. Author Ann Patchett raves: “Circe is an epic spanning thousands of years that’s also a keep-you-up-all-night page-turner, a story of the gods and goddesses and their dalliance with the mortal world, a lesson in antiquities that manages to both educate and thoroughly entertain, and, as an extra bonus, it’s beautifully written. Who could ask for more than that?” Miller won the Orange Prize for her debut bestseller, The Song of Achilles. Commending her scholarship and imagination in blending with The Iliad, The Washington Post says, “In prose as clean and spare as the driving poetry of Homer, Miller captures the intensity and devotion of adolescent friendship and lets us believe in these long-dead boys for whom sea nymphs and centaurs are not legend but lived reality. In doing so, she will make their names known to yet another generation, deepening and enriching a tale that has been told for 3,000 years.” Miller has taught and tutored Latin, Greek and Shakespeare to high school students for the past 20 years. She has also studied in the dramaturgy department at Yale, where she focused on the adaptation of classical texts to modern forms.