biography

Rachelle Toarmino is a writer, editor, and educator from Niagara Falls, New York. She is the author of the poetry collection That Ex and the chapbooks Feel Royal and Personal & Generic. Her poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Shabby Doll House, Sundress Publications, The Wanderer, and elsewhere, and have been anthologized in The Cosmonauts Avenue Anthology and My Next Heart: New Buffalo Poetry. Rachelle's writing has earned mentions on lists such as Entropy's Best of 2019: Online Essays, Cosmonauts Avenue's 2018 Nonfiction Prize Shortlist, and Cosmonauts Avenue's 2018 Poetry Prize Longlist. In 2018, she was named Buffalo Seminary's Elizabeth McNulty Wilkinson Poet, and in 2012, she was the recipient of the University at Buffalo's Creative Nonfiction Prize.

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Rachelle is the founding editor in chief of Peach Mag, an independent and volunteer-run literary publishing project with an online journal, print anthologies, live events, writing prizes, an editorial apprenticeship for teens, and more. She has presented both locally and nationally on topics such as building literary community, publishing etiquette, and trends and developments affecting the independent publishing industry. In 2017, she served on the editorial advisory board of My Next Heart: New Buffalo Poetry.

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Rachelle recently attended the Tin House Winter Workshop for nonfiction and is currently working on an essay collection that explores privacy, persona, and vulnerability online. She lives between Buffalo, New York and Western Massachusetts, where she is an MFA candidate in poetry at UMass Amherst.

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contact

@rchlltrmn

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@peachmgzn

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photos

by Stephen Gabris for Buffalo Spree

by Sam Tilkins for Virago Buffalo

by Shayna Kiblin

by Nancy J. Parisi for Just Buffalo Literary Center