Interview with Writer Mar'ce Merrell: Bridging the Gap Between the Impossible and the Possible

Join novelist, essayist, and canoe adventurer Mar’ce Merrell as she unpacks her spiritual and creative toolbox, sharing how she uses meditation to move through stuck places in life and on the page. Mar’ce describes the steppingstones of her journey from the moment her therapist first suggested meditation to a literal “breakthrough” experience at an MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) Retreat with Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli at Mount Madonna Center. The breakthrough encouraged her to “show up for herself” in radical ways. She undertook an Outward Bound Woman of Courage Canoe trip, during which she wrote a prophetic letter to her future self. Mar’ce’s spiritual and creative explorations then took her to Greece, where she participated in a GoodWorld Journeys Writing Salon taught by George Saunders and Mary Karr—another life-changing experience. In the course of the interview, we discuss George Saunders’ story "Victory Lap," and how the surrendering of old beliefs has been a through-line of Mar’ce’s journey. Finally, Mar’ce describes some of her extraordinary life-and-death moments in the canoe, how she learned to work with water and not against it, and how her life has unfolded in the gap between the impossible and the possible. 

Mar’ce is the author of the novel Wicked Sweet, a Barnes & Noble Best Summer Read pick for Young Adults. Her stories and essays include: “Water Calls, Water Holds” (Embrace Your Divine Flow), "Architecture as Reconciliation" (Fold Magazine), and "Variations in a Living Thing" (Hags on Fire Magazine). She holds an MFA from Sierra Nevada College and lives in Ghost Lake, Canada, where she “writes to observe and record the natural world and the wilderness in our minds.” Mar’ce currently facilitates online creative writing circles or “Nests” whose participants hail from all over the world. Mar'ce is on Instagram. You can find out more about her work and her mentorship at www.marcemerrell.com.