Rachel Smith
writer | coach | editor
Rachel Smith is an experienced writer, coach, and editor who supports writers to develop stories with the full scope of emotional and psychological depth that resides within their own wisdom and experience. She emphasizes the playful and joyful nature of finding the creative spark and bringing it to full fire.
Rachel’s Offerings
Testimonials
There is no parallel experience to that of working with Rachel. Over the seven years of our friendship, Rachel has taught me craft, language, and nuance better than any teacher I have ever known. Her teaching comes from a deep well of wisdom and trust. Her compassion and generosity channels the purest form of universal love. Love is what Rachel teaches — for your work, your path as a writer, and most importantly, yourself. She brings to your work a discerning, original eye that sometimes lands like a gut punch, sometimes like an echo of the voice deep within yourself. Always, she opens a door to possibility. To hope and creation. Working with Rachel requires a level of bravery–beyond commitment and discipline–that asks you to question and listen. To open your heart to seeing your own deepest truths.
— Jessica Shi, MacDowell & Katherine Min Fellow
I learned so much in my first class with Rachel, and since then taken several more, all with the same great results: I leave feeling empowered with specific skills, but also with a sense of possibility! She is masterful at presenting a class with strong writing, then giving everyone space to work out ‘how’ it’s powerful. This leads to many aha! moments that really stick with me days and months later when I’m struggling with a way forward. And there’s a marvelous feeling of unity and cohesion in the classes, despite the diversity of outlooks and projects. When Rachel edited my novel I realized how very fortunate I was to have her working with me! Such deep but concise analysis, page by page. She’s able to illuminate pieces of writing that are ‘almost’ there, and the gentleness of this approach makes the realizations and then the fix for them almost feel like self-discoveries! When I’m in one of her classes I’m aware of what a gift she is to writers and the world of books.
— Kurt Wallace
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