About the Author

15,000 miles.
Looking for a hat and a home.

I am a 5th-generation San Franciscan, descended from Gold Rush-era ranchers, lovers of the great outdoors, and proud cowboy hat wearers. It's in my blood. Yet I've spent more than half my life abroad, 26 years of which in England, watching the West from afar. I have been writing about life in England, but I thought it was about time I explore my home country again.

So I did what any writer would do: I got in a car and drove. Over 15,000 miles across America, searching for the perfect cowboy hat, a sense of belonging, and maybe, just maybe, a place to finally hang it. The journey became something I couldn't have anticipated: a reckoning with identity, with "home", with the land that shaped me before I ever chose to leave it.

My first love was a horse named Macho, a giant Quarter Horse; he was quite a lot of horse for a 9-year-old girl, but I was hooked. I ride whenever the world lets me. I love country music, wide open spaces, the particular silence of a morning before the rest of the world wakes up, and the scent of a campfire still in my hair.

The book is coming. The story is already being lived.

Thank you for visiting! Y'all come back now, ya hear? 🤠

Merrill

PS I have written for The Virginia Sportsman, MadeinBed Magazine, The Sword, and various other publications over my lifetime.

I am a proud card-carrying member of The Society of Authors, Outdoor Writers Association of America and The Authors Guild.