Rachel Kesselman

Rachel Kesselman is a writer.

Born and raised in rural Northeastern Pennsylvania, Rachel Kesselman has lived in Paris since 2012, where she writes and teaches. She holds a Master of Studies in Creative Writing from the University of Oxford, where she was awarded a Kellogg College Scholarship. 

Rachel's work has appeared in Rivers, Ridges, and Valleys: Essays on Rural Pennsylvania with Catamount Press, Appalachian Review, and The Wellington Square. One of her essays was selected as a finalist for North American Review's 2021 Terry Tempest Williams Prize, and in 2022, her memoir was longlisted for the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Awards. At her Substack Salon Nouveau, she writes bi-weekly meditations on literature, music, and art from Paris. 

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From 2022 to 2025, Rachel served as Workshop Director of La Muse Retreat, where she facilitated and organized writing workshops and retreats. She was awarded the Carlisle Family Scholarship for the Squaw Valley Community of Writers Workshop, the Mathey Family Scholarship for the Mendocino Coast Writers' Conference, and the Frederick E. Hart Scholarship for the Leopardi Writing Conference in Italy. She has been a resident at the Sundress Academy of the Arts, Welcome Hill Studios, and Moniack Mhor.

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Rachel holds a BA in French and English with a Concentration in Creative Writing from Bryn Mawr College and a Master's in Comparative Literature and Education from the Sorbonne. She has taught English language and literature as a professeur certifiée since 2015. An amateur soprano, she performs regularly in Paris and founded the recital series Un Voyage Lyrique in 2022. ​

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She is currently at work on a novel, which was awarded support from the F. Lammott Belin Arts Scholarship Program in 2025.