Rachel creates spaces for story and sound through writing and publishing poetry. Originally from Tennessee, Rachel studied English and Humanities at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (B.A.) and the the University of Iowa (M.F.A.). Currently she teaches at the University of Northern Iowa and is an Editor for the North American Review, America’s oldest literary magazine. She speaks about editing, publishing, and submitting work in workshops across Iowa and the U.S. Additionally, she teaches generative classes and workshops on writing poetry, with a focus on Beginner’s Mind, meditation, and ekphrastic writing.

She is the author of the chapbook, Honey & Blood, Blood & Honey (Final Thursday Press 2017), and her work anthologized in various collections such as Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America and Let Me Say This: A Dolly Parton Poetry Anthology. Recently appears or is forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Denver Quarterly, Salt Hill, Mid-American Review, DIAGRAM, among others. She is the winner of the 2020 Fineline Competition, and her work has been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology and a Pushcart Prize. She’s received fellowships from Vermont Studio Center, Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow, and Rockvale Writers’ Colony.