About

Rachel Kessler is a writer and artist based in Seattle, Washington.  She has found herself singing sea shanties in The Henry Art Gallery’s men’s public restrooms to encourage hand-washing and the reading of poetry. As a teaching artist she works with homeless adults, people in recovery, youth in detention, and a whole squirrely passel of kindergarten through high school kids as a Writer in the Schools. She has written about earrings and vaccinations, breasts, books, postpartum depression, eating and hair removal for The Stranger, Mutha, and Seattle Review of Books. Her work has been anthologized in Ghosts of Seattle Past, WA129, and The Open Daybook. Her poems and video poems are featured in Narrative Magazine, Poetry Northwest, The Awl, and PANK. Her essays and comics appear in Literary Hub, Seattle Metropolitan Magazine, Seattle Arts & Lectures, and elsewhere. An avid collaborator, she is a founding member of the Typing Explosion and the Vis-à-vis Society. Her collaborative poems have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Tin House, TATE, and USA Today. The Frye Art Museum and the Bellevue Art Museum have featured her collaborative installations. Her literary performances have premiered at DIA, The Bowery Poetry Club and the Poet’s House through the New York Public Library, the Art Institute of Chicago, University of Arizona Poetry Center, and toured US and Canada’s east and west coasts with the Wave Books Poetry Bus, sharing the stage with John Ashbery and Billy Collins, as well as during the 50^th Venice Biennale. She has received numerous grants and awards for her collaborative and solo work. Currently, she walks and talks with people along Yesler Way.