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]