Kelli Carruth Miller

Idealist and creative dreamer Kelli Carruth Miller was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA in 1966. When her teachers thought she was daydreaming & not paying attention, Kelli was imagining scenes from books she read, and chasing her own new ideas in her head, sparked by anything and everything interesting in her environment. Books were her best friends, and anything happening around her had to compete with her inner imagination for her attention. The worlds revealed in Laura Ingles Wilder's Little House on the Prairie books; the extensive Wizard of Oz series; Bible stories from 19th century out-of-print books; and the Chronicles of Narnia were Kelli's favorite places of refuge. After graduating from Baton Rouge High in 1984, Kelli pursued undergraduate and graduate work in education, English and Spanish at Samford University in Birmingham, AL.

After marrying John (because he was The Most Interesting Man in the Room....and still is); becoming a mother of three and teaching for ten years in Louisiana, Alabama and Texas, what no one ever saw coming, was Kelli's mid-life pursuit of shepherding. A longing to see Jesus with fresh eyes, to gain a better understanding of the ancient, agrarian world of the Bible for her 21st century, non-agrarian-familiar mind, and a consuming desire to understand WHY Jesus so often chose sheep as His go-to metaphor for describing His relationship to His people, and theirs to Him, motivated Kelli to begin learning about sheep. After carefully choosing the Gulf Coast Native breed designed to thrive in the hot, wet, sheep-hostile climate of the South, Kelli began raising selling registered breeding stock, befriending many other shepherds, and learning to spin the wool she sheared herself into yarn.

Kelli enjoyed learning these things with her daughters, and sharing all she learned about sheep, shearing, spinning, weaving, and sheep herding at the Louisiana Renaissance Festival, the Rural Life Museum, and a variety of churches in the Greater Baton Rouge area.

Once Kelli became comfortable enough shearing her own sheep, she and her daughter began shearing for other shepherds of small flocks around Louisiana, selling wool to spinners, and having some professionally milled into yarn she sells under her Wool of Louisiana label on Etsy.

The original motivation, to gain insight into scripture and a better understanding of Jesus as "shepherd", was constantly present throughout Kelli's shepherding adventures. The cumulative result the multitude of insights she gained from of ten years' experiences shepherding (and still counting) manifests in this new children's series, (of which Green Grass, Still Waters is the first), and her book for adults, A Sheep-Like Faith: What My Sheep Taught Me about Following Jesus, due to go to press in 2018.

Kelli now lives with her family and sheep (and dogs, chickens, cats and horses) in Wyoming after a recent cross-country move, where she continues to write, shepherd, and collect elementary school text books printed before 1970.