Born in Hiawatha, Kansas, in 1951 as Stephen Bradley Miller, after graduating from high school there in 1969 he attended Kansas State University, Washburn University, and the University of Missouri, graduating with the BA degree in philosophy from Washburn and a Bachelor of Journalism degree from Missouri.

Using the byline Bradley Miller, Sage spent the greater part of his years following college as a writer and editor. For five years in the 1980s he wrote daily editorials and a twice-weekly bylined general-interest column for the Dallas Morning News. Most of his freelance essays have appeared in the Sunday Outlook section of the Washington Post and others in the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times, The American Scholar, Freethought Today, Counterpunch and other publications from coast to coast.

 A cultural critic and satirist, Sage is a libertarian lefty in politics, and since moving to Manhattan in 1998 has written many columns for The Manhattan Mercury, as he’s doing now. The name “The Fabulous Sage” came when he began signing up on karaoke lists as The Fabulous Sage. Then an article on karaoke by the Kansas State Collegian quoted a DJ as follows: “All you have to do is say ‘The Fabulous Sage’ and people go nuts.” He has stated, “He’d like that on his tombstone.) 

“Sage” was also the name of a newsletter he did during football seasons from 1998 through 2006. It consisted of a general-interest essay, spiced with humor, as well as picks against the spread on Big 12 football games. I originally called it “The Big 12 Sage” but soon changed it to The Fabulous Sage to go along with my karaoke persona and he has gone by Sage Miller since then.