Lily Poritz Miller was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and came to the United States with her family when she was fifteen. She began her editorial career in book publishing in New York at The Macmillan Company and later McGraw-Hill, then moved to Toronto, where she was senior editor at McClelland and Stewart for eighteen years. She has written three plays, which were performed in New York and Toronto, and received a Samuel French national award for her play The Proud One. Her short stories were published in the anthology American Scene: New Voices. She has also written for film. In 2009 her novel In a Pale Blue Light was published to critical acclaim. She presently divides her time between Toronto and Mexico.