Rachel Yoder grew up in an intentional Mennonite community in the Appalachian foothills of eastern Ohio and now lives in Iowa City with her husband and son. She and Mark Polanzak are the founding editors of draft: the journal of process, a literary journal that features first and final drafts of stories, poems, and essays, along with author interviews about the creative process.
Rachel earned an MFA in Fiction from the University of Arizona and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the Iowa Writers Workshop, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. She has taught writing at the Iowa Writers Workshop, the University of Arizona, The Midwest Writing Center, and Prescott College where she also served as the Managing Editor of Alligator Juniper, the college’s award-winning literary journal. She is the former director of the Iowa Youth Writing Project, a literary outreach organization, and currently serves as a board member for the UNESCO City of Literature.
Rachel’s short story “On Innocence” was a runner-up for The Chicago Tribune’s Nelson Algren Award. Her work has also been awarded The Editors’ Prize in Fiction by The Missouri Review and with notable distinctions in Best American Short Stories and Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Send questions, comments and corrections to info@creativewritingmfa.info.
Disclaimer: No endorsement of these ratings should be implied by the writers and writing programs listed on this site, or by the editors and publishers of Best American Short Stories, Best American Essays, Best American Poetry, The O. Henry Prize Stories and The Pushcart Prize Anthology.