storyteller
As an oral storyteller, Rachel has spent more than a decade entertaining listeners of all ages in schools, libraries, theatres, concerts and festivals. She travelled to Northeastern Quebec as part of Canadian Children’s Book Week and was a featured guest of both the Grapevine Storytelling Series in Washington D.C. and the Story Crossroads Festival in Utah. In 2021, her original story “Grace and the Banshee” was chosen by Storytellers of Canada-Conteurs du Canada as the winner of the “Story for All” competition for Canadian Storytelling Day, and translated into French. She has performed original stories in the feature concerts of three Storyteller of Canada-Conteurs du Canada national conferences, most recently in Victoria, BC in June of 2026.
In October 2026, Rachel will debut a new production at Nanaimo’s Port Theatre, with cellist Alexandra Lee and pianist Frances Armstrong. She Composed Herself celebrates the life and music of the late 19th/early 20th century female French composer, Mel (Mélanie) Bonis. The performance traces Bonis’ life from a bourgeois childhood in Paris, where a musical education was actively discouraged, to a career as an award-winning composer of more than 300 pieces under her male pseudonym.
Accompanied by violinist Nicolas Ross and with the assistance of a Canada Council for the Arts grant, Rachel debuted Once Upon a Fiddle in February 2023. With four historical stories spanning four centuries, the spoken word and music concert celebrated the power of art and the human spirit.
podcaster
In 2021, Rachel launched two podcast series. To hear a selection of Rachel’s original stories, visit Hintertales: Stories from the Margins of History (for adults), and Sticks and Stones and Stories (for children).
author
Rachel is the author of four children’s novels—When the Curtain Rises, Ten Thumb Sam, The Solstice Cup, and Squeeze (all Orca Book Publishers)—and more than a hundred essays, articles, and stories for adults in various newspapers, magazines, and anthologies.
editor
As an editor and workshop facilitator, Rachel has helped many other people find and tell their stories, both in oral and written form. She is currently the managing editor of WordWorks magazine for the Federation of BC Writers.
mother, grandmother
When she’s not writing, editing, or performing, Rachel spends as much time as she can exploring the wild spaces around her Vancouver Island home. She and her husband have been partners in adventure for more than thirty-six years. They have four daughters, a son, two sons-in-law, and four grandchildren—her treasure.
contact
For performance or workshop requests, contact Rachel at racheldm@shaw.ca