ABOUT KERI LEIGH
Keri Leigh Merritt works as a historian and writer in Atlanta, Georgia.
She earned her B.A. from Emory University and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. Her first book, Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South (Cambridge University Press, 2017), won both the Bennett Wall Award from the Southern Historical Association, honoring the best book in Southern economic or business history published in the previous two years, as well as the President’s Book Award from the Social Science History Association.
Publications and Projects
Merritt is also co-editor, with Matthew Hild, of Reconsidering Southern Labor History: Race, Class, and Power (University Press of Florida, 2018), which won the 2019 Best Book Award from the UALE (United Association for Labor Education). She is currently working on two book-length projects for trade presses. Merritt also writes for the public, and has had letters and essays published in a variety of outlets.
Most recently she released a self-narrated audiobook version of Masterless Men, and launched her history-based YouTube Channel “Merrittocracy.”
In her free time Keri Leigh likes to travel, go to concerts & museums, read, and cook.
She loves discussing politics, listening to a wide variety of music, creating art, and spending time with brilliant and creative people. Some of her favorite things: black coffee, French whites, Italian reds, dark chocolate, dark comedies, Smoky mountains, artistic beauty, and biting wits.
