Writer

RACHEL GREENLEY is a Pacific Northwest writer published in the New England Review, The New York Times, Orion Magazine, River Teeth, Longreads, and Passages North, among others. She has a forthcoming essay in Ploughshares. She earned her MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars in 2023. 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.

Greenley is finalizing The Unwinding: Essays. Having just left Amazon, the essayist embarks on an excavation of the narrative of corporate success she bought into. Through a series of explorations—to an Amazon warehouse, an atomic reactor, a nerve gas bunker, a colossal dam, a mega data center, her childhood commune and a Thoreau-like cabin in the woods—she examines the impact of industry and consumption on our environment and bodies. Greenley asks “How does one unwind their choices, leave the system and claim a new way of life?”

A recovering corporate worker, Greenley now writes for a university from a cabin in the woods.

Selected Writing

Origin Stream – Passages North (#47 – Winter 2026)

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