Miriam Sagan was born in Manhattan, raised in New Jersey, and educated in Boston. She holds a B.A. with honors from Harvard University and an M.A. in Creative Writing from Boston University. She settled in Santa Fe in 1984.

Sagan is the author of over twenty books. Her most recent is a memoir, Searching for a Mustard Seed : A Young Widow's Unconventional Story (Quality Words in Print, 2004. Winner best Memoir from Independent Publishers, 2004). Poetry includes Rag Trade (La Alameda 2004), The Widow's Coat (Ahsahta Press, 1999), The Art of Love (La Alameda Press, 1994), True Body (Parallax Press, 1991), and Aegean Doorway (Zephyr, 1984). Her published novel is Coastal Lives (Center Press, 1991).

With Sharon Niederman, she is the editor of New Mexico Poetry Renaissance (Red Crane, 1994). Winner of the Border Regional Library Association Award and Honorable Mention Benjamin Franklin Award) and with Joan Logghe of Another Desert: The Jewish Poetry of New Mexico (Sherman Asher, 1998). She and her late husband Robert Winson wrote Dirty Laundry: 100 Days in a Zen Monastery, a joint diary (La Alameda, 1997; New World Library, 1999). She is the author of Unbroken Line: Writing in the Lineage of Poetry (Sherman Asher, 1999) which Robert Creeley called “A work of quiet compassion and great heart.”

Sagan is also the author of four juvenile nonfiction books, including Tracing Our Jewish Roots (John Muir). Her work has appeared internationally in 200 magazines. She writes book columns for both the Santa Fe New Mexican and New Mexico Magazine, and a poetry column for Writer's Digest.

Sagan directs the creative writing program at Santa Fe Community College, and has taught at the College of Santa Fe, University of New Mexico, Taos Institute of the Arts, Aspen Writer's Conference, around the country, and on line for writers.com and UCLA Extension. She has held residency grants at Yaddo and MacDowell, and is the recipient of a grant from The Barbara Deming Foundation/Money for Women and a Lannan Foundation Marfa Residency.