Although Rachel has zero background in horticulture, she’s been on The Garden of Words team for 8 years, second only to Jenny. And while Rachel sometimes views her lack of hort background as a negative on our team, we view it as a positive — it’s easy for the rest of us to take for granted that what we’re writing about makes sense, but if Rachel doesn’t get it, then we know we haven’t been clear enough! She’s like our secret weapon to make sure we’re not just writing to professionals.
Rachel works on our copywriting team and has garnered quite the admiration from our clients. She seems to have a Spidey-sense about the client’s voice, and how to write newsletter copy that not only reflects but amplifies it. Her degree is actually in anthropology (isn’t that fascinating?), but always loved writing. She started writing in the health and wellness industry with yoga articles, but then connected with Katie on Upwork, and the rest, they say, is history.
“Our team is so supportive,” she says, “the company culture is so healthy that I love coming into work and checking in with everyone on Slack. I don’t do social media, so this is my online connection, and I love it.”
Rachel works with many of our beloved clients, including Murphy Citrus, Dammann’s Garden Center, Bluestone Perennials, Womanswork, Organic Mechanics, and A+ Garden Center, creating regular newsletters, seasonal emails, and promotional email copy. With this list of clientele, she regularly writes about soil, garden clothing, citrus trees, perennials, and all manner of general garden plants and flowers. And we’d argue that writing about these topics for 8 years now qualifies her as “having a hort background” — so, sorry, Rachel, you’re no longer the newbie on the team.
Oh, and another thing: Rachel is the queen of puns and will look for any opportunity to insert them into whatever it is she’s doing, including email copy. So future clients, if your company voice is a bit quirky or humorous, we’ve got the writer for you!
What she loves the most about being on the team is, unsurprisingly, what most of the other team members have said about working with The Garden of Words — that she loves the people we work with. Her work enables her to stay home and homeschool their son, taking breaks to snowboard, camp, and hike in their Maine neck of the woods.
Rachel, you’re a sparkling unicorn of joy to work with — can we have 8 more years with you, please?
Rachel’s Offbeat Tip: After you’re done writing, take the time to read your copy out loud, not just skim it silently. Reading out loud quickly calls to attention any non-obvious typos, omitted words, and voice/tone that doesn’t sound quite right (too formal, not cohesive enough). You might feel silly doing it, but your copy will thank you!
