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Rob Merritt has a B.A. and MA. in English from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Kentucky. He has taught at Virginia Tech, the University of Kentucky, and, since 1990, at Bluefield College. His primary scholarly interest is modern poetry. He published a book, Early Music and the Aesthetics of Ezra Pound, which examines how Pound adapted some elements of pre-Mozartian instrumental music into his poetry and into his critical defenses of modern art He has also published essays on Joyce, Yeats, and Faulkner.

He writes poetry and creative nonfiction, having been recently published in The Potomac Review, The Sowís Ear Poetry Review, and The Asheville Poetry Review. In both genres, he seeks to notice the lens through which we view nature, trying to let it speak more directly. He has taught several interdisciplinary courses about the environment.

He is Vice-President-Elect of "West Virginia Writers" and directs the visiting writers program and The Bluestone Review at Bluefield College.