Merritt Tierce Explained

Merritt Tierce is an American short story author, story editor, essayist, activist, and novelist.^[1] Tierce was born in Texas and attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop, receiving her MFA in Fiction in 2011.^[2] She previously taught at the University of Iowa.^[3] She was a founding board member of the Texas Equal Access Fund and previously worked as Executive Director of the TEA.^{[4] [5] [6]} She currently resides in Los Angeles and is a writer for Orange is the New Black.^[7]

Awards and honors

• 2019 Whiting Award^{[8] [9]}
• 2015 PEN Literary Awards Finalist^[10]
• 2015 Texas Institute of Letters Steven Turner Award for First Fiction^[11]
• 2013 National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 Honoree^[12]
• 2011 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award^[13]

Residencies

• 2017 MacDowell Colony Fellowship^[14]
• 2017 Willapa Bay Artist-in-Residence^[15]
• Can Cab Residency^[16]

Bibliography

Novels

• Love Me Back. Doubleday Books. 2014. .

Short stories

• "Casa Linda." D Magazine. 2017.
• "Calvin D. Colson."^[17] PEN America #19: Hauntings. 2016.
• "Solitaire." Oxford American. 2014.
• "Everything I Did in Madrid." H.O.W. Journal. 2014.
• "Suck It." Southwest Review and New Stories from the South: The Year's Best. 2008.

Essays

• "The Abortion I Didn't Have." The New York Times Magazine. 2021.
• "Distributed Denial of Service." Granta. 2019.
• "Author Merritt Tierce's Brief Stint as a Mailman." D Magazine. 2017.
• "What to Read If You Care About Access to Abortion in Trump's America." LitHub. 2017.
• "At Sea." The Paris Review. 2016.
• "I Published My Debut Novel to Critical Acclaim--And Then I Promptly Went Broke." Marie Claire. 2016.
• "Why I'm Still Infuriated About Abortion Access in Texas." Cosmopolitan. 2016.
• "This is What an Abortion Looks Like." The New York Times. 2014.
• "World Cup." Electric Lit. 2014.

Other work

Tierce was a writer for seasons six and seven of Orange is the New Black.^[18]

Early life and education

Tierce grew up in Texas in a strongly Christian household. She graduated from Abilene Christian University at 1997^[19] with a Bachelors degree, age 19, having started college two years early. Slated to start a graduate program at Yale School of Divinity the next year, her plans changed due to a pregnancy and ensuing marriage to the father of her unborn child, an event she sardonically described as a child bride in a shotgun wedding. (She never went to Yale, but earned a Masters of Fine Arts from the Iowa Writers Workshop^[20] about fifteen years later.)

Tierce was unable to consider abortion due to her religious beliefs at the time (she had written and presented against it while unknowingly pregnant). She also couldn't consider giving up her first child to adoption,

The couple had a second child, a daughter, about a year later. They eventually divorced, continued an amicable co-parenting. Tierce remarried around age 36, and has a stepdaughter.^[19]

Notes and References

1. Web site: Merritt Tierce. Merritt Tierce. en-US. 2020-02-07.
2. Web site: Merritt Tierce a 2019 Whiting Award Winner Iowa Writers' Workshop College of Liberal Arts & Sciences The University of Iowa. writersworkshop.uiowa.edu. 2020-02-07.
3. Web site: Merritt Tierce on Iowa, Comma Usage, and Her Debut Novel, Love Me Back. 2014-09-26. Barnes & Noble Reads. 2020-02-11.
4. Web site: Merritt Tierce Wins Rona Jaffe Award: Dallas Feminists, Literature Nerds Rejoice. Hamilton. Brentney. 2011-09-20. Dallas Observer. 2020-02-07.
5. Web site: Abortion Rights Groups Say It's Time To Stop Playing Defense. NPR.org. 29 December 2013. en. 2020-02-07. Lohr. Kathy.
6. Web site: Merritt Tierce. 2015-03-30. PEN America. en. 2020-02-07.
7. Web site: How novelist Merritt Tierce left Texas to become a staff writer for 'Orange Is the New Black'. 2017-06-08. Dallas News. en. 2020-02-07.
8. Web site: Merritt Tierce. www.whiting.org. 2020-02-07.
9. Web site: Writers' Workshop alum receives Whiting award. The Gazette. en. 2020-02-07.
10. Web site: Finalists Reading: Debut Fiction from the 2015 PEN Literary Awards. 2015-05-01. PEN America. en. 2020-02-07.
11. Web site: Texas Institute of Letters: Awards 1936-2021. www.texasinstituteofletters.org. 2021-12-06.
12. Web site: 5 Under 35 2013. National Book Foundation. en-US. 2020-02-07.
13. Web site: Post. Rona. 30 June 2019. en. 2020-02-07.
14. Web site: Merritt Tierce - Artist. MacDowell Colony. en. 2020-02-07.
15. Web site: About Willapa Bay AiR Residents. www.willapabayair.org. 2020-02-11.
16. Web site: Residents. Can Cab. en-US. 2020-02-11.
17. Web site: 19: Hauntings. 2019-06-17. PEN America. en. 2020-02-07.
18. News: Tierce . Merritt . 2021-12-02 . The Abortion I Didn't Have . en-US . The New York Times . 2022-06-09 . 0362-4331.
19. Web site: Merritt Tierce . 2022-06-09 . Texas Monthly . 15 September 2015 . en-US.
20. Web site: about . 2022-06-09 . Merritt Tierce . en-US.