Richard Merrill

Richard Merrill, a Maine-based writer, is the author, paper engineer and illustrator of two non-fiction books published by Dover: Fantastic Press-Out Flying Birds and Beautiful Press-Out Flying Butterflies. They are what they sound like! Each has 24 accurate and colorful designs of birds or butterflies printed on heavy paper to press out, fold and fly.

Merrill grew up in eastern Oregon in a small town in the high desert among cattle ranchers, lumberjacks and sagebrush. He started reading at an early age, and feasted on a wall of books his parents provided without restriction. Everything from Children's Book Club to Howard Pyle's Robin Hood to Gray's Anatomy, psychology, history and theology was fair game. Merrill's parents also provided art supplies and paper with unrestricted access, leading to cartoons, satirical newspapers, and many, many paper airplanes. A Smith Corona typewriter was the vehicle for Merrill's early writing, chiefly science fiction.

Education

One of 500 National Merit Scholars in the country in the '60s, Richard Merrill attended Goddard College in Vermont, where he studied with theater teacher Paul Vela, anthropologist Jules Rabin, and poet Paul Nelson. Classmates included David Mamet, poet Jane Shore, and actor/comedian Jonathan Katz. Richard attended Harvard College through a Goddard program, studying paleontology and evolution with noted evolutionary paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. Add two years at Boston University, and Merrill had racked up far more credits than needed for his BA in Biology.

Career

Richard Merrill created illustrations and graphics for professors and publishers during the 70s. Before moving to Maine, Richard Merrill became a self-taught mechanical designer, advancing to aerospace and optical design engineering. He worked for for Varian, Compugraphic, Thermo Jarrell Ash, and Itek Optical Systems in the Route 128 high-tech area around Boston, living in Gloucester where his children were born.

Living in Maine

He has been a lifelong puppeteer, and performed professionally for several years after moving to Maine, presenting at Northeast Storytelling's Sharing the Fire storytelling conference. He led a workshop titled "Spiritual Stories in a Secular World" featuring his storytelling character Nasruddin.

Since 1994, Merrill has been married to fiber artist, weaver, teacher and author Susan Barrett Merrill. He co-wrote, edited, and designed Barrett Merrill's book The Art of Weaving a Life, now published by Schiffer Books, first edition 2016.

Richard designed logo, website, marketing materials, and product labeling for Powerhouse Dynamics of Boston, MA. Later he was a founding member, Chief Marketing Officer/Board Chairman, and UI/UX and product designer for Maine environmental monitoring company PowerWise Systems from 2010 until his retirement in 2024 to pursue creative activities.

Besides the press-out books for Dover, Merrill's non-fiction includes a series of commissioned articles co-authored with Susan Barrett Merrill for Voices: The Journal of the Academy of Psychotherapists, on handwork and healing; craft articles for Living Crafts Magazine, summer 2010; and a groundbreaking study of specially modified music as a treatment for chronic pain.

He is working on a epistolary fiction project, The Lost Journals of Nasruddin, comprising extended versions of traditional Nasruddin tales and original stories featuring Nasruddin.

In the works

Digger, a grounded young adult/older middle grade western sci-fi adventure novel.
The story is set in eastern Oregon's high desert (home of the famed John Day Fossil Beds), where Merrill grew up. Drawing on his studies of vertebrate paleontology, evolution, and biology, the story follows a seventh-grade boy and an eighth-grade girl as they deal with an escalating series of events flowing from a momentous discovery. The story is grounded and realistic, with conspiracy and danger, a paleontologist who was one of the first women in the Army Rangers, a dramatic final high-tech confrontation, and a satisfying conclusion.

Details on Merrill's novel will be announced later this year.