R/B Mertz (they/them) is a trans/non-binary butch poet and artist. Mertz wrote the memoir Burning Butch (Unnamed Press, 2022) about being raised inside the Bush-era right-wing Catholic fundamentalism. Burning Butch was a finalist for Memoir Magazine's Best Memoir Grand Prize. They also wrote the essay, “How Whiteness Kills God & Sprinkles Crack on the Body" (Mistress Syndrome). Their first book of poems, CU T, was released May, 2024 by Threadsuns Press.  Recent work was published in Guernica Magazine, America Magazine, Arc Poetry Magazine, Powders Press, beestung, Christian Century Magazine, Autostraddle, and Another Chicago Magazine. Mertz taught writing in Pittsburgh for eleven years and was honored to be a finalist for City of Asylum's 2020-21 Emerging Poet Laureate of Pittsburgh. On January 1, 2021, they left the US for love, and they now reside with their wife and child in Toronto, Ontario, traditionally the territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples. Mertz teaches writing at Sheridan College and is at work on a new memoir, Boy or Girl and a novel, The Triangle, both of which have been generously supported by the Toronto Arts Council. 

Contact: ProfRBMertz@gmail.com

Instagram: @RBMertz