Rachel Birchley

Rachel (she/her) is based in Portsmouth in the south of England and is currently working on a hybrid of memoir, nature and urban landscape writing and social commentary. After a fifteen-year career in the public housing and homelessness sectors, she returned to university to do a creative writing MA and is now a PhD student at Portsmouth University. She is passionate about finding and celebrating the nature that flourishes on our doorsteps – and in the places we least expect: abandoned, derelict buildings, alleys, wasteland and at the edges of the urban spaces where we live.

Rachel also photographs the places she walks and many of these images accompany the pieces showcased here. All thumbnail clippings accompanying each piece are photographs Rachel took (except for the NMA Sinfonia review).

She also writes poetry and short fiction, published in the anthologies Body & Soul (United Press Ltd, 2002), Night Lines and City of Stories 2020: Shortlisted entries from the Portsmouth Short Story Competition 2016-2019 respectively. In addition, she has also written music reviews for Louder Than War (www.louderthanwar.com) and has written both individually and collaboratively with community-based, ecologically-focused writing groups and publications Pens of the Earth (www.pensoftheearth.co.uk) Tongues and Grooves (www.tonguesandgrooves.com), and Star and Crescent (www.starandcrescent.org.uk).

In 2024, Rachel had a personal essay and an article published in Pens of the Earth's anthology Wild Seas, Wilder Cities, along with creative nonfiction published in literary publication Seaside Gothic magazine https://seasidegothic.com/ and a book review in The London Magazine.

In 2025 Rachel placed second in a Writing Magazine life-writing competition: https://www.writers-online.co.uk/writing-competitions/showcase/life-writing/runner-up/

Also in 2025, two personal essays, 'Wracklines', 'Drifting Not Drowning' and 'Diffability' were published online in Mugwort Magazine (March 2025), Seaside Gothic issue 15 and the Fall issue of Breath & Shadow (https://www.abilitymaine.org/bs2025fall) respectively.

Poems 'The Wrath of Water', 'Someday, Severance' 'Lusus Naturae' and Hyldemoer were published in the debut issue of Threshold Zine, Breath & Shadow (here at https://www.abilitymaine.org/bs2025spring/%22someday%2C-severance%22) and The Yelling Continues and Mugwort Magazine's winter 'Spectral & Strange' issue.

Rachel also enjoys attending live music gigs and festivals, walking, going to the gym and her other job as a cat sitter, caring for people's pets when they are away.