Tom Miller didn’t want to be a writer. He just fell into it.

Miller, a local freelancer and editor, spent his youth writing for his high school and college newspapers. It was only at the end of his brief, two-year college career that he became interested in writing.

“I did like the idea of writing something that was in concert with the types of activities I was doing,” he said, citing his experiences working for the underground press and promoting the anti-Vietnam movement.

Although Miller published stories throughout high school and college, his first, “real” published piece was an interview with Wilbur Cohen of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

“I interviewed him and it ran in the college paper (at the College of Wooster) and it also ran in the local paper in Wooster, Ohio. I think they paid me $10, but writing has never been a get rich quick scheme,” Miller said.

After moving to Tucson in 1969 as an eager 21-year-old, his writing taste changed and he grew interested in the issues that affect the U.S.-Mexico border.

“I found that writing was very satisfying, especially if it revealed something about a slice of the Southwest or of the Borderlands that wasn’t generally well known,” he said.

After the publication of “On The Border: Portraits of America’s Southwestern Frontier” in 1981, reviewers of the book remarked on the book’s potential as a travel resource.

“I thought, gee I didn’t even think about that,” Miller said. “I don’t mind being called a travel writer and I’ve done other books that fit more closely to travel writing, but it isn’t something that I sought to do.”

When Miller introduces himself as a writer, he lets his resume do the talking for him. With publications like Rolling Stone Magazine and The New York Times under his belt, his resume does more than enough to prove his writing prowess.

“In general, I’ve found (that) having a decent resume – just telling people what I’ve done – serves as a good introduction,” he said.

Miller’s latest book, “How I Learned English: 55 Accomplished Latinos Recall Lessons in Language and Life,” required him to edit stories by the likes of television’s Cristina, and the No. 1 women’s golfer, Lorena Ochoa.

The premise for the book arose after Miller noticed that many of his contacts learned English as a second language. It was fascinating to him how these people acquired their English and how it affected their Spanish.

Every time he met someone whose second language was English, he would ask them about it and put it on the back-burner for eventual publication.

“It’s a nice respite from writing,” Miller said. “Editing is not arduous; you have to stay on top of it. You have to make sure everything is precise – it’s not the pitfalls of writing.”

Although Miller might have welcomed the break from writing, the process of preparing the book wasn’t always an easy one. He had to approach each person about submitting to the book: letting them know who else he hoped would participate, how he hoped the book would turn out and who the publisher was. Each contributor had different schedules and different deadlines, forcing Miller to constantly communicate back and forth with the writer when editing.

As a resident of Tucson for just under 40 years, Miller developed an interest in border issues.

“Each time I would write about a subject, whether it was religion, or music, or sex, or theater or architecture, no matter what the subject was, there was always a little blip right at the border – something unusual would happen on the border and carry into Mexico,” he said.

Miller has spent plenty of time traveling along the border, but he hasn’t been exposed to many dangerous situations.

“I was interviewing a man that lived right there on the border, a Papago man, and when the interview was up and I was driving back to the highway, there was a pick-up truck following me. I realized he wasn’t just following me, he was pushing me off the reservation.

“He was tailgating me at a distance of three to four feet and I got a good look at the driver who wasn’t that happy that some gringo was driving around,” Miller recounted.

“In the grand scope of danger in the Borderlands, it wasn’t that dangerous, but it wasn’t something that I appreciated.

“There was also another time, where a photographer and I crossed into Mexico and the Mexican immigration guy asked if we were going as tourists or if we were working, and we lied and said as tourists, which was fine, we spent the day interviewing people and visiting candelarias,” he said.

“When we crossed back, the same Mexican immigration guy was there and said ‘Wait a minute, we saw you guys earlier,’ and he took us into custody and finally we ended up buying them dinner and they let us go.”

“How I Learned English: 55 Accomplished Latinos Recall Lessons in Language and Life” was released on August 21 and is available on Amazon for $16.95.

Listen to Jamie's Phone Interview with Tom Miller