Greg Blake Miller
Managing Editor
Contact: 868-4514 • Email
Miller has helped lead Vegas Seven’s editorial team since 2010, during which time the magazine has received more than 40 state and regional honors. Named Nevada’s Outstanding Journalist for 2011, he is interested in both Las Vegas’ grand myths and its quiet spaces. “Sometimes our city’s indefensible,” he says, “but in the end it’s unsinkable. There’s strength in our sense of difference here—that chip on the shoulder keeps us fighting.”
Las Vegas is Miller’s hometown, but his career has taken him to Seattle, Los Angeles and Moscow, Russia, where he was a staff writer for the Moscow Times. He has also taught journalism, communication studies, literature and writing at the University of Oregon and UNLV.
Miller holds a doctorate in international communication from the University of Oregon, and has spoken at national and international communication conferences, often focusing on the unexpected connections between nostalgia, media and social progress. He sees these connections both in his work on Russian cinema and in his closer-to-home writing on the history of UNLV basketball. A Rebel fan since childhood, he admits the one thing that can pull him away from a good Russian movie is an even better UNLV basketball game.
Recent Articles
City of Taste
With its sights and flavors, The District creates an experience to remember
December 23rd, 2010
When I was 10 years old, my family headed south to Arizona for the holidays. The highlight was our walk around Scottsdale’s outdoor mall. I was shocked that such a place could exist: trees and grassy quads and stores and restaurants strewn about like islands. “I hope we get something like this in Las Vegas,” I said.
Twenty years passed before we got The District at Green Valley Ranch in 2004.
Read More »
The Education of Henry Chanin
Behind the largest jury award in Nevada history is the story of a man who helped shape modern Las Vegas
December 16th, 2010
Henry Chanin was just stepping out of a gondola in Venice, Italy, when the weariness descended. “I was weak as a puppy,” he remembers. “I couldn’t walk. I had no idea what was going on.” Chanin and his wife, Lorraine, were experienced travelers and urban walkers, but the mile and a half to Hotel Bonvecchiati, just off St. Mark’s Square, may as well have been a marathon. Henry walked 10 steps, sat down, walked another 10, stopped. By the time they arrived, the Chanins realized their vacation was over.
Read More »
Libertarian Follies
Root’s comments to Vegas Seven stir up the rabble
December 9th, 2010
Wayne Allyn Root, Las Vegas’ most famous libertarian, has never sought splendid isolation from his critics. So when he told Vegas Seven that he hoped to re-create libertarianism in a more conservative mold [“The Freedom Fighters,” Nov. 11], he was hardly surprised to find himself pilloried in the libertarian blogosphere.
Read More »
Why Not?
Why not stay dry?
December 2nd, 2010
If you’ve made a recent trip to the artificial body of water just south of us, you probably noticed that someone pulled the bath plug on Lake Mead. So until we discover the Aquifer at the Center of the Earth, or, that failing, figure out a way to legally swipe water from Lincoln County, let’s try to save some of the wet stuff.
Read More »
Why Not?
Why not revive the ring around the Valley?
December 2nd, 2010
Let’s bring back Dina Titus’ idea of an urban growth boundary for the Las Vegas Valley. A decade ago, some regarded the notion as a brake on a booming economy, a hand in the pocket of developers, a slap in the face to the construction industry and an inconvenience to incoming residents hoping for an endless supply of brand-new housing on an ever-expanding suburban frontier.
Read More »
Why Not?
Why not set aside the notion of luring a major league team and concentrate on proving that we can be a first-class home for the sports we already have?
December 2nd, 2010
Now that might lure a major league team. Without either substantial refurbishment or replacement of Cashman Field, we’re in danger of losing Triple-A ball. Without a paved parking lot at Sam Boyd Stadium, the football fan experience remains an exercise in exurban hiking. UNLV baseball, on the verge of a renaissance with new coach Tim Chambers, needs our support.
Read More »
Why Not?
Why not make live entertainment a part of everyone’s life?
December 2nd, 2010
Does nightlife happen way past your bedtime? Do you read the A&E section of this magazine as a form of vicarious living? Rise up, midlife suburbanites, it’s your Vegas, too! We’ve got families, and we can’t be out all hours of the night roaming the mean streets of downtown.
Read More »
Why not revive the lost art of theming on the Strip?
December 2nd, 2010
In 1993, the year the MGM Grand opened on the Strip, the great Scottish rock group known as The Waterboys released a song about Las Vegas called “Spiritual City.”
Well, it wasn’t technically about Las Vegas. Maybe metaphysically. Or telepathically. In any case, the song’s final, brilliant, cacophonic moments dispense some apt advice for our radiant little village:
Read More »
Why Not?
Why not get our very own USC … well, OK, maybe just our own Loyola Marymount?
December 2nd, 2010
The traditional argument about the future of UNLV has been between what we’ll call the Harvard of the West model and the Cal State Bakersfield of the East model: Either secure the funding, somehow, to continue UNLV’s efforts to become a top-tier research university (maybe not the Harvard of the West, but at least the Utah of Nevada) or accept the realities of funding, community and population and steer UNLV toward becoming a solid all-access four-year college, something like the Cal State schools.
Read More »
Why Not?
Why not repurpose derelict properties?
December 2nd, 2010
These are painful times, so let’s begin with a painful metaphor. The recession has been some sort of horrible dental drill, boring through the surface of the city, hitting nerves and leaving plenty of empty spaces: Shopping centers and office buildings with unoccupied suites, mixed-used developments that wound up neither mixed nor used.
Read More »