Life is about the chase … Rachelle Chase lives those words. From learning to ride a motorcycle and joining a motorcycle club to quitting her job and moving to South America, from majoring in biology in college to working as a claims adjuster, programmer analyst, owner of a multicultural software products business, a model, and a business analyst, she believes in chasing her dreams and goals until she attains them—or they change.
One thing that has never changed is her love of books. She started her writing career writing sexy romances after landing contracts with a small publisher, then New York’s Kensington Publishing, but in 2008 she discovered Buxton, Iowa thanks to her former romance writing instructor and friend, Leigh Michaels. By January 2017 she’d written, sold, and released her first nonfiction book, LOST BUXTON. In 2019, her second one, CREATING THE BLACK UTOPIA OF BUXTON, IOWA followed. On June 1, 2022, it was included in NPR’s Summer Reads list. Rachelle’s currently working on two historical fiction books—one for middle grade students which has sold and is targeted for publication in 2023—and a screenplay and hopes, one day, to write more about Buxton at her neglected LostBuxton.com.
As a speaker, Rachelle has been touring Iowa and beyond, giving more than 100 presentations—many to standing-room-only crowds—on Buxton, Iowa. She’s also given corporate presentations, college convocations, workshops on writing, created and co-hosted an online writing contest for writers (which resulted in numerous writers landing agents and book deals) and hosted two popular podcasts featuring bestselling authors.
As a result, she’s appeared in documentaries, most recently, “Telling Our Story: Black History” on Iowa PBS and KYOU’s “Remembering Buxton” as well as on local and national television. Past appearances include WHOTV Channel 13 (Des Moines), KTVO Virtual Channel 3, NJTV with Senator Cory Booker, CBS (San Francisco), and New York’s “The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet” – plus local and national radio shows, including Iowa Public Radio (2017, 04/2019, 12/2019, 2021, and 2022), “BLM and Buxton on In Depth with Dr. Bob Leonard“, KBIZ (Ottumwa, IA), KRUUFM.com’s “Writers’ Voices,” and more.
Her recent adventures include becoming an opinion columnist for the Des Moines Register (March 2022), completing Emerge Iowa (Class of 2020), an exciting program for women who plan to run for public office, and working as the Waterloo Reporter for Iowa Starting Line (2020). She’s incredibly excited to have launched her first nonprofit, Uniting Through History, in February 2021.
For the latest updates, Rachelle invites you to subscribe to her mailing list.
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Rachelle Chase
515-423-7401 (cell)
Recent interviews: Iowa Public Radio, Hello Iowa!, and KYOU-TV
New nonprofit: UnitingThroughHistory.org
Catch me on stage at the Brown & Black Democratic Presidential Forum
Catch my performance in the Storytellers Project
Catch me on NJTV News with Sen. Cory Booker
CREATING THE BLACK UTOPIA OF BUXTON, IOWA now at LostBuxton.com
Rachelle has also hosted two live talk shows, SingleMindedWomen.com Talk Radio, which featured popular guests speaking about dating, relationships, parenting, and more, plus “Chatting with Chase,” in which she interviewed best-selling authors
On March 1, 2010, Chase launched the Hip History Contest, which invites middle and high school students to creatively share the history of Buxton, Iowa, through the arts for a chance to win $2,000, and get their work in front of local celebrity judges, and more. Details and entries that are starting to come in can be found at the link above (UnitingThroughHistory.org).
Chase joined the staff of The Des Moines Register as an opinion columnist in March of 2022. Check out her inaugural column. It offers solid evidence for why her voice is unique.
Follow Rachelle Chase on Twitter: @Rachelle_Chase
COACHING SESSIONS
- Writing Hot! Rachelle is a former romance writer. Learn skills that will transform you writing.
- “Using Research to Bring Your Work to Life — Not Kill It” No matter what genre you write, odds are, you will need to research something to add interesting details to your story. But how much is enough — or too much? How do you seamlessly weave what you’ve found into your work without it sounding like an information dump? Come prepared to write! Bring your own research or use supplied examples to craft scenes that inform and entertain readers and leave them wanting to read more.
Reserve your place in the Okoboji Writers’ Retreat now.