Aleksandra Merk was born in Toronto, Canada to parents from Central and Eastern Europe, and she grew up navigating multiple cultural identities. Her writing explores immigrant family dynamics, personal longing, and the inner vs. outer lives of women and mothers. Her work has been shortlisted for Room Magazine's 2024 Fiction Prize and longlisted for the CBC's 2025 Short Story Prize. She is currently seeking publication for her first novel.
Aleksandra received her Honours B.A. in English Literature and International Relations from the University of Toronto, and her M.A. in English Literature and American Studies from the University of Nottingham, UK. After graduate school, she worked as a writer and contributing editor for Niagara Magazine, Interiors Magazine, and Business Niagara. Since 2007, she has been teaching writing and communications at Niagara College in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.
In 2019, she completed The Story Course Intensive via the Sarah Selecky Writing School. She is also a proud graduate of Book Alchemy's very first Dream to Draft cohort. In 2022, she lived with her family in Berlin, Germany where she completed a storytelling through podcasting project. She wrote about this experience on her Substack, Berlin for a Season.
Some of her favourite books include February, by Lisa Moore; How to Pronounce Knife, by Souvankham Thammavongsa; The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich; Lives of Girls and Women, by Alice Munro; This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, by Ann Patchett; Writers and Lovers, by Lily King; Anne of Green Gables, by L. M. Montgomery; and Machine Without Horses, by Helen Humphreys. Yes, she reads a lot of books about women, by women.
In 2007, she fell in love with a piano player. They married in 2013 and live together in a small town with their two children and one very cuddly dog.