Tom Miller began his career in the alternative press. In the 1980s, he traveled the length of the U.S.-Mexico border and reporting on the borderlands as a "third country" with its own culture, he started a career that would bring him accolades from his fellow writers (Pete Hamill, Adam Hochschild) as well as celebrities like Linda Ronstadt. Miller is called a travel writer, but his powers of observation and the depth of his insight make him much more than that. He is a genre of his own.