Born in Brooklyn, of Italian immigrant parents, Miriam spent the majority of her life in New York. Miriam's love for words began in the fourth grade, when she won a school competition for her story, “The Magic Hat.” At the age of fifteen, she revised her children's story and sent it along to Simon and Schuster. She says, "When I received my first glowing rejection slip from Simon and Schuster, on their neatly-typed official letterhead, I was exhilarated. I felt the beginnings of what it could be like to be an author."
The year before John Gardner's untimely death, Miriam attended a lecture at a local university in New York where Gardner was the keynote speaker. When she approached him, he asked her to send him a story. That weekend, she sat down and wrote a short story. Six months later, John Gardner wrote her a letter: "You write brilliantly - your character's are vivid and real, and your language is superb..." “A Matter of Difference” intended for a literary magazine, was later published in Playgirl Magazine.
Through the years, Miriam published short stories and poetry in various literary magazines. She received recognition from the Italian American Writers Association for her story “Gifts of Grief” and an honorable mention for the World’s Greatest Short Short Story Competition, where there were several thousand entries. Her poem “First Born” won the 11th Annual Robert Frost Poetry Contest. She is also a recipient of a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award.
Miriam’s debut novel In a Vertigo of Silence was named one of the Best Indie Books of 2015 by Kirkus Reviews. At age 86, Miriam’s second novel Rosina was released to critical acclaim by Serving House Books.