Nan C. Merrill is the author of Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness, which has sold 50,000 copies and is in a tenth-anniversary edition. Her widely used Meditations and Mandalas: Simple Songs for the Spiritual Life is also published by Continuum. Merrill founded the monthly newsletter Friends of Silence, served  with urban parish teams, facilitated retreats, and was engaged in prison ministry for more than thirty years. She passed away in January 2010.