WHO WE ARE

Edgar Miller, in a career that has spanned half a century, has been a reporter, a copy editor, a foreign correspondent, a press secretary for a U.S. senator, a wire service bureau chief and executive, a newspaper editor, a magazine editor, and a journalism educator. He has written and edited for print, radio, television, film, and the Internet. He has designed and produced numerous newsletters, including a daily faxed newsletter on Latin America when he lived in the Washington, D.C., area. He won critical acclaim as the translator of two Brazilian novels from Portuguese to English for the New York publisher Alfred A. Knopf Inc. He served in the military as a Slovene language specialist and intelligence analyst. He and his Brazilian-born wife of more than 50 years now live in the Sequoyah Hills section of Knoxville, Tennessee. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in communications.
        

Jacqueline Miller Laurito has worked for the past 16 years as a legal secretary for major law firms in Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia. She is accredited by the National Association of Legal Secretaries. Fluent in English, Portuguese, Spanish and French, she also has worked for several years as a free-lance translator/interpreter, both in the United States and Brazil. Before becoming a legal secretary, she was an executive secretary to a major international consulting firm in Washington. And prior to that she worked in the travel and hotel industries and is a certified travel agent. She studied at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga, the University of Maryland and Monterey Peninsula College in California and did course work at the USDA Graduate School in Washington. She and her two sons recently moved from Falls Church, Va., to Knoxville, Tenn.

John Miller’s skill as a manager, entrepreneur and marketer has been honed by many years of experience in small business. For several years, John successfully operated white water rafting businesses on the Ocoee River in Southeast Tennessee. In that role, he developed a highly successful system for training guides and oversaw the complicated business of organizing multiple daily trips, keeping track of reservations, setting up a marketing plan to attract new customers. Today, John is the business manager of his wife’s successful architectural rendering company, Christopher Illustrations. Additionally, he is a partner in several other enterprises in Maryville, Tennessee, where he lives with his wife and two sons. 

Wanessa Velloso Martin, a native of Brazil, has more than 30 years' experience as a teacher and translator. She has taught in many different settings both in Brazil and the United States: Language schools, corporations and universities, including the University of Tennessee and the University of New Mexico. She holds a master's in Literary Studies from the University of New Mexico where she was the recipient of the Teaching Assistant of the Year award for 2006. She most recently worked as the academic supervisor of a language camp in Boston for three years. She and her husband now live in Knoxville, Tennessee Wanessa , whose translations have included many academic articles for professors in Brazil, specializes in translating from English to Portuguese.