Writer

RACHEL GREENLEY is a Pacific Northwest writer published in the New England Review, The New York Times, Orion Magazine, River Teeth, Hobart, Brevity, and The Baltimore Review, among others. She has been supported by the Bread Loaf Environmental Conference and the Prospect Street Writers House. Her essay, “Here in Umatilla,” was nominated for the John Burroughs Award and was selected as a Notable Essay in the 2025 edition of The Best American Essays, guest edited by Jia Tolentino. Her essay, “The Atomic Disease,” was selected as Longreads Top Essay of the Week.

She earned her MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars and her resulting essay collection, Swerve, examines the complexities of a childhood with parents that sought to leave the system, and her response to precarity by embracing, and then rejecting, corporate America. The result is an immersive and revealing portrait of that hustle we call work, of the impact of consumption on one’s spirit, and of what kind of work makes a good life.

Rachel’s current project, a novel, is described as Amity Gaige’s Heartwood meets Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

A recovering corporate worker, Rachel is now a quiet writer at a public university.

Selected Writing

What We Leave Out – Orion Magazine – Reprinted in Memoir Monday

Packed Cubicles, Empty Corner Office: Remote Work Is Increasingly a Right of the Rich – The New York Times

Here in Umatilla – New England Review – Selected by LitHub to be featured in LitHub Daily, nominated for the John Burroughs Award and a Notable Essay in the 2025 edition of The Best American Essays

The Atomic Disease – Orion Magazine – Selected as Longreads #1 Essay of the Week, and Best of 2023

This is the Reality of America’s Fast Fashion Addiction – The New York Times – Reprinted in Memoir Monday

Confession – River Teeth

Untethered – Hobart

The Cedar – The Baltimore Review