Merrill Gilfillan is the author of five books of poems, Skyliner (Blue Wind), To Creature (Blue Wind, 1975), Light Years: Selected Early Work (1977, Blue Wind), River Through Rivertown (1982, The Figures), and Satin Street (1997, Moyer Bell). He is perhaps most well known for his books of prose essays that include Chokecherry Places: Essays from the High Plains (1998, Johnson Books), which won the Western States Book Award for Creative Nonfiction, Grasshopper Falls (2000, Hanging Loose Press), and Magpie Rising (2000, Hard Press), which won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Nonfiction. Gilfillan lives in Boulder, Colorado.