Rachel Mennies

is the author of the poetry collections The Naomi Letters (BOA Editions, 2021); The Glad Hand of God Points Backwards, the 2014 winner of the Walt McDonald First-Book Prize in Poetry at Texas Tech University Press and finalist for a National Jewish Book Award; and No Silence in the Fields, a chapbook from Blue Hour Press. Her poetry has recently appeared at Poetry Magazine, The Believer, Kenyon Review, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Rachel's essays, criticism, and other articles have appeared, or will soon, at The Millions, The Poetry Foundation, LitHub, and numerous other outlets.

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Rachel took over for Robert Fink in 2016 as the series editor of the Walt McDonald First-Book Prize in Poetry; she also serves as the reviews editor for AGNI. Alongside the poet Ruth Awad, she edited the anthology The Familiar Wild: On Dogs and Poetry for Sundress Publications (2020). She served as the 2021-2022 Walton Visiting Writer in Poetry for the University of Arkansas MFA Program in Creative Writing and Translation. As an adjunct professor, she's taught creative writing, rhetoric/composition, professional writing, and writing pedagogy at Carnegie Mellon University, Chatham University, Penn State University, and Loyola University Chicago.

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Rachel currently works as a freelance editor and writer. She's the owner of The Little Book, a one-person company that provides writing and editing services to individuals, nonprofits, and businesses of all sizes. She lives in Chicago with her spouse and her greyhound Otto.

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Past interviews and podcast appearances with Rachel: Queer Poem-a-Day, New Books Network, Deerfield Public Library, Michigan Quarterly Review, Chicago Review of Books, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Dinnerview, Queen Mob's Teahouse, Prosody, American Microreviews & Interviews, New Books in Poetry, Omnidawn First Verse Series, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Speaking of Marvels.