About Merrick
About Merrick
Merrick is proud to call herself a mother, writer, teacher, musician, and pilot, though her diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder has prevented her piloting an aircraft in many years. All is not lost, however, as she enjoys focussing her time and effort on her family, her pets, her writing, and teaching of music.
Given that in August 2024, Merrick became an empty-nester, her hopes are to travel, both with and without her merry band of pets, and enjoy her time putting pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard.
Writer
Merrick is a passionate writer who enjoys studying the craft of writing. She studied under USA Today Bestseller Lee Ann Ward, having undertaken her amazing ‘How to write a Good Book,’ course, and has also completed the equally amazing ‘Fiercely Flash—Courageous and Compressed Writing,’ with MaxieJane Frazier.
Merrick is proud to have won Writing Away Refuge’s 2024 First Chapter Consult & Contest.
She is currently waiting on her manuscript ‘The insiders: Akrotiri,’ to be completed by her editor before submitting to literary agents.
Merrick also enjoys writing both micro flash fiction and micro non-fiction, having a passion for a breathy, stream-of-consciousness style of expression.
Pilot
Merrick’s enthusiasm for flying starts at Manchester Airport, or more specifically, in a pub bordering the airport’s perimeter. When visiting her grandparents up north, Merrick's parents would take their children to the pub, ostensibly to give the elderly folk a break, but really to get blasted by aviation exhaust. Merrick recalls climbing the fence and feeling the force of jet engines as aircraft turned off the taxiway to launch. She also remembers the waving pilots and the feeling of being able to escape the real world.
Her first trial flight took place at Cranfield Airport, situated just outside the village of Cranfield, in Bedfordshire, England. It was a beautiful day and the air was smooth, and Merrick was hooked. Her second flight took place at Biggin Hill, on a blustery day, and Merrick filled three sick bags, but was still hooked. Her third and final flight in England took place at Caernarfon Airport, in Caernarfon, Gwynedd.
In 2000, Merrick was fortunate to be offered a deputy headteacher job on Royal Air Force Akrotiri, in Cyprus, where she settled and earned her private pilot’s license.
Teacher
Merrick’s first attempts at guiding the educational development of children younger than her started when she turned eighteen, and was sent for work experience at Uphill Primary School, in Uphill, Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset, in the west country of England.
After completing her music degree, Merrick then attended Trinity College Carmarthen, in Wales, where she obtained a Post Graduate Certificate of Education. She taught as a peripatetic music teacher in Wales for a couple of years, before moving to Kent, where she taught nearly every grade (not all at once) at Hildenborough Church of England Primary School, in Tonbridge. After working her way into senior management, and holding a short stint as acting headteacher, Merrick moved to RAF Akrotiri, where she became deputy headteacher of the school there on base.
Fast forward several years, Merrick taught lower, middle (and a tiny bit of upper) school Nashville’s Currey Ingram Academy––a school for children with learning differences. After taking a short break to write, Merrick then taught part time at a homeschool enrichment academy on Nashville’s Music Row.
Merrick is currently taking a break from classroom teaching in order to focus on writing and private music teaching.
Mother
Merrick is a mother to two college-aged sons (a junior and a freshman at the University of Tennessee) both of whom were born in Northern California. Though they both learned to play drums, they were born with more aptitude for sport than their mother, and played travel baseball throughout their childhoods and teenage years––a sport not played much in Merrick’s home country, but which she grew to love.
Merrick has been a mother to multiple pets over the years, but has whittled things down to one dog (a very bossy Yorkshire Terrier named Jackson), and two cats (Zoey and Sukie, neither of whom care for Jackson, though the feeling is mutual). She also has a step-dog named Foster, who might better be named Houdini.
After twenty years of parenting, including nearly two years of homeschooling, Merrick is now an empty nester.
Musician
Merrick started playing the trumpet when she was eleven years old, after joining the Burnham and Highbridge Scout and Guide band, based in Highbridge, Somerset, which later came to be known as The Red Pythons Youth Marching Band. At the same time, Merrick started taking private piano and trumpet lessons. When she turned fourteen, Merrick auditioned for the Somerset Youth Orchestra and won one of two coveted trumpet spots. Realizing music was her passion, after graduating from her sixth form college, Merrick moved to Cardiff, Wales, to study performing arts at the Royal Welsh College of Music Drama. She graduated with BA Performing Arts (honors) in 1991.
Merrick has taught music to children since that day, both professionally and as a volunteer. Now living in Nashville, AKA Music City, Merrick enjoys attending concerts at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center and at various other locations around town.
Trigger warning (pedophilia): The Red Pythons’ band master was convicted in 2011 for indecently assaulting boys during Merrick’s time in the band. Additionally, a teenager who taught Merrick to play the trumpet was jailed for fifteen years following a separate pedophile conviction. Despite this, Merrick went on to love and study music with safer teachers.