Maggie Mertens, author photo

Maggie Mertens is a writer, journalist, and editor in Seattle. Her essays and reporting have appeared in The Atlantic, NPR, Sports Illustrated, ESPNw, Glamour, Pacific Standard, Refinery29, and Creative Nonfiction, among others. Her book Better Faster Farther: How Running Changed Everything We Know About Women will publish in June 2024.

For readers of The National Team, Good and Mad, and Born to Run, as well as feminist histories like Fly Girls, this edge-of-your-seat, virtually unknown story tells how women broke into competitive running over the last century, getting faster and fiercer with every race and changing our understanding of gender and power in one of America’s most popular pastimes──and beyond.