Rachel Basch is the author of The Passion of Reverend Nash (named one of the five best novels of 2003 by The Christian Science Monitor), Degrees of Love, and The Listener, out now from Pegasus Books. Basch has reviewed books for The Washington Post Book World, and her nonfiction has appeared in n+1, Parenting, and The Huffington Post. Basch was a 2011 MacDowell Colony Fellow. She received the William Van Wert prize for an excerpt from her new novel, The Listener.

A dedicated teacher of creative writing for over 20 years, Basch is a contributor to Now Write!: Fiction Writing Exercises From Today’s Best Writers & Teachers. Basch currently teaches in Fairfield University’s MFA Program and in Wesleyan University’s Graduate Liberal Studies Program. In addition she works independently with writers and leads a private master class.

Basch holds degrees from Wesleyan University and NYU’s Graduate Creative Writing Program, where she was awarded a Teaching Fellowship and a University Scholarship. She has lived in Connecticut for 30 years.