Q: What’s your name and where are you from?

A: Rachel Grate. I’m from the San Francisco Bay Area, and have lived in Amsterdam for the last five years.

Q: Talk about your journey as a writer. Was there any inspiration you can recall that started it all? When did you know writing was a passion for you?

A: I’ve known I’ve loved writing since I was a kid, reading nearly a book a day and writing the start of many stories in notebooks. I had some amazing English teachers in high school who really encouraged this and helped cement that I wanted my life to center around storytelling.

Q: Have you had any formal education in writing? If yes, what did you find most useful from the education? If no, how did you learn everything you currently know about writing?

A: I studied literature in college and took several creative writing courses. I found both the encouragement and learning how to process critiques and feedback to improve your own story hugely helpful. I also started with journalism as a potential career path (then pivoted to content and brand marketing) and professionally having strict deadlines and working with editors helped me get in the habit of writing regularly without overthinking it.

Q: Do you have a writer’s group that you work with? What other resources have you found that help you out?

A: I don’t have a formal group, but I do have several groups of writer friends both from San Francisco, Amsterdam, and an online romance writer’s workshop I did who help keep me motivated and give me feedback on stories.

I’ve gotten a lot of value from a few very good online writing courses. Especially since I focus on genre writing (romance and mystery), specific courses from authors writing in these genres have been hugely helpful to understand common plot structures and mistakes to avoid.

Q: What are some of your goals for your writing career?

A: I’d like to get my first novel published. I also always have a goal to have at least one piece of writing published a year, which so far has been short stories (four published so far!).

Q: Talk about one of your favorite pieces you’ve written. Why is that one your favorite?

A: My first published short story outside of school journals was “Santa School” in Heartbeat, a now-defunct Substack short story newsletter. The story is about Frank, who has given up on love after the passing of his beloved wife, Mary. To get his concerned daughter off his back, he spontaneously enrolls at a local Santa School and finds a second chance at love.

Frank is based on my grandpa, and I wrote it a few years after my grandma passed away. In many ways, it’s an ode to him.

Q: What does your writing process look like?

A: My inspiration usually starts with a setting—an amazing Victorian hotel, the women’s college I attended in 1968, the Amsterdam canals. Then I imagine characters who belong there and what challenges they are facing, always with the setting a driving factor. I write loose outlines and messy first drafts, usually have to rewrite from scratch for my second, then polish from there.

Q: What do you do for work? What other hobbies or interests do you have besides writing?

A: I work in Brand Marketing now, which is a nice way to have storytelling still be a part of my day job. I used to work in content marketing specifically, but I found working with words all day left me little energy to tell my own stories. I’ve found a better balance now.

Outside of writing, I love reading (of course!), running, traveling, and any activity outdoors in the sun.

Q: As we all know, most people make little to no money for their writing, yet it’s still an important part of any writer’s life. How do you make time to write? Is there a particular time of day you prefer to write?

A: I’ve found that I’m most successful writing on a regular basis when I wake up early and do 1-2 hours before work (it took me many years of resisting this fact before I embraced it).

Q: What are you currently reading?

A: Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley.

Q: Are you currently working on any projects you want to talk about?

A: I’m on my fourth draft of my romance novel, and also plan to revisit a mystery novel I set aside after querying without success two years ago.

Q: What is one piece of advice you can offer to new writers?

A: Just keep going and put the idea down on paper. It’s never as shiny as it is in your head, but once you have it down you can make it shine later.