Bio / Pics

Merrill Black’s essays have appeared in the New York Times, New York Press, UnderWired Magazine and in the anthologies Autobiographical Writing Across the Disciplines, published by Duke University Press and Becoming Portsmouth: Voices from a Half Century of Change, The History Press. In 2018, she gave a TEDx talk in Portsmouth, NH, titled "Embarrassed to death: The cost of shame's silence."

A 2003 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Creative Non-fiction, she taught Nonfiction Writing at Southern New Hampshire University and now helps students develop their college admissions essays through the Arthur Ashe Institute of Urban Health in Brooklyn, NY. 

She lives in Portsmouth, NH with her husband, seacoast artist Russell Aharonian. Merrill is currently working on a memoir about generational alcoholism intertwining the stories of a mother’s recovery and her son’s death from the disease, bearing witness to the powerful community, enduring sense of connection and surprising moments of joy that can emerge from addiction, recovery and loss.