

Now Available from Allison & Busby
Imperfect Alchemist
A Novel of Mary Sidney Herbert,
Renaissance Pioneer
Now Available!
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Imperfect Alchemist
Naomi Miller
Historical Novelist and Award-Winning Author
After thirty years as a scholar of early modern women, I realized that my work wasn’t close to being complete as long as the wider public had no awareness of the remarkable women authors who were published and read in the time of Shakespeare.
IMPERFECT ALCHEMIST is the first in a projected series of novels centered on these women, called Shakespeare’s Sisters – celebrating them not simply for their relation to men (like the wives of Henry VIII) but for their own voices.
This novel is an imaginative re-invention of the extraordinary life of Mary Sidney Herbert, Renaissance pioneer – friend of Queen Elizabeth, visionary scientist, advocate for women writers, and scandalous lover of a much younger man. Fact and fiction blend as the likes of Walter Raleigh, John Donne, Ben Jonson, and William Shakespeare rub shoulders with courtiers and commoners, servants and savants, including a young woman artist who sees beyond the real.
Interested in how this novel came to be? See my pieces, “Imagining Mary” and “Imperfect Alchemist: Writing Women’s Voices”.

“To have lived a free life in London in the 16th century would have meant, for a woman who was poet and playwright, a nervous stress and dilemma which might well have killed her.”
- Virginia Woolf (1929)

About Naomi
I was born in Los Angeles, California, on a street named “Enchanted Way.” I am descended on my mother’s side from a Japanese shogun of the late 1500s and on my father’s side from Dutch-English settlers who came to the American colonies in the Mayflower era. Being aware of what my ancestors were doing while Mary Sidney Herbert was alive has added resonance to the process of composing this novel. I wrote my first novel at the age of twelve – an 80-page hand-written mystery set in the England of Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters.
Captivated by Shakespeare and Renaissance England, I produced an undergraduate senior thesis at Princeton on the plays of Christopher Marlowe, and a doctoral dissertation at Harvard on the works of Sir Philip Sidney and his niece Lady Mary Wroth, the first woman to publish a sonnet sequence and a prose romance in Shakespeare’s England. My first book, Changing the Subject, placed Wroth’s writings in relation to other Renaissance women authors such as Sidney’s sister, Mary Sidney Herbert – women whose writings brought women’s lives to light and their voices to life.
I had four children before earning tenure at the University of Arizona, where I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at the age of forty. I have been guided in moving forward by the teachings of Thich Nhat Hahn in practicing mindfulness as a mother, author, teacher, and person of color.
I live in Northampton, Massachusetts, where I teach at Smith College on Shakespeare and “Shakespeare’s Sisters.” I am the recipient of the Sherrerd Award for Distinguished Teaching, and three of my previous books have received awards from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender.
"Be the Empress of the world, commanding the Empire of your own mind."
- Mary Wroth (1621)
Forthcoming Novels

Secret Storyteller
Renaissance Rebel

Passionate Pilgrim
Renaissance Sappho

Dark Madonna
Renaissance Phoenix

Owl in the Desert
Renaissance Renegade

Queen of Masquerade
Renaissance Dreamer
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Naomi Miller discusses the composition of Secret Story-Maker, the sequel to Imperfect Alchemist
In the article below, originally printed in the Sidney Journal, Naomi Miller discusses the composition of Secret Story-Maker, the sequel to Imperfect Alchemist, which tells …
“Authorizing Early Modern European Women” available December 6!
I’m thrilled to announce the publication of a new book of essays about early modern women in biofiction, “Authorizing Early Modern European Women: From Biography …
Celebrating the one year anniversary of Imperfect Alchemist
As we approach the winter solstice, I welcome the opportunity to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the publication of Imperfect Alchemist (20 November, 2021) followed …
Biofiction as Alchemy: Writing Imperfect Alchemist
Watch Naomi Miller’s talk “Biofiction as Alchemy: Writing Imperfect Alchemist” at Imperial College London. The Q&A following the talk covers some particularly interesting ground!
Imperfect Alchemist longlisted for the HWA Debut Crown Award 2021
Imperfect Alchemist by Naomi Miller has been selected by the Historical Writers’ Association 2021 Debut Crown Award longlist! The 2021 Crown Awards (Debut, Gold and …
Watch Naomi Miller’s talk at Smith College’s Faculty Showcase, “Changing the Canon Through Historical Fiction”
Professor Miller’s course on “Shakespeare’s Sisters” focuses on Renaissance women writers who were long excluded from the literary canon. Her talk shares how the course …
Get in Touch
Contact Naomi
Agent Contact Information
-
Jacques de Spoelberch
J de S Associates - 203 838 7571
- [email protected]