Rachael V
Writer #10509
Joined 10/10/2014
4 Star Rating
100% Success
135 Projects
0 Endorsements
2 Elite Skills
Rachael is a veteran journalist with more than 20 years experience writing features, covering general assignment stories and spot news. She is the winner of several Associated Press awards for her long-form, feature journalism. She has also completed two original screen plays and one novel. Rachael is a popular and well respected newspaper columnist and political writer in Northern Oklahoma.
Rachael has written in many extreme and inconvenient circumstances, including covering the war in Iraq while embedded with an Army unit. As a veteran, she was able to access locations in Iraq other writers were not permitted to travel. She produced living, breathing features every day, chronicling the struggles of Sunni and Shiite tribes during the war. She did this while still hitting deadlines for newspapers in the United States, which were eight hours behind the time in Iraq.
Rachael also worked in marketing and promotions, writing the advertising and promotional content for clients of two newspapers. She wrote all the grand opening promotions material for a newly constructed Bass Pro Shops in Louisiana. Rachael has written grant applications during her eight years as the mayor of a small Oklahoma town, as well as press releases and military newsletter content during her 21 years in the Army Reserves.
As a professional writer and blogger, Rachael shares her expertise in politics, government, military, security, leadership, oil and energy as well as lifestyle topics such as spirituality, family life, mental health, combat stress, PTSD and personal growth.
Relationships
Government
Food
Electronics
Blog Post

Specialties

Rachael has created contacts through her work abroad that enable her to obtain interviews and information from myriad sources - some even outside of the United States - who are not usually available to most writers. Rachael's experience and training in the proper way to cover victims of natural disaster and terrorism enable her to get close to sources who usually resist many writers. Her time living without the most basic conveniences and in dangerous locations shapes her ability to write convincing and full-bodied advertising content for even the most simple products.

Interests

Rachael is an avid horsewoman. She owns an acreage in the Panhandle of Oklahoma where she lives with her two dogs Nipper and Gracie, her cat Norman and her horse Brother. She loves traveling to California to visit her daughter and son-in-law Johnna and Jason. She enjoys spending time outside training for marathons, writing poetry and learning about great wines.

Education

University of Central Oklahoma

Rachael completed 102 hours toward a bachelors degree in political science. She left school early when she gave birth to her daughter Johnna.

Food

27 Projects Completed

While the executive editor of a community magazine, Rachael added a feature called "Dinner Date". This was a local restaurant critique, which became known for picking some of the best eateries in the region. Rachael uses her love of good food and great wine as a backdrop for her columns and blogs. In her style, a reader can almost taste what she's writing about.

Government

22 Projects Completed

Rachael served for eight years as the mayor of a small town in Oklahoma. The task was true public service, was unpaid and it required hundreds of hours of grant writing for numerous projects, including newly paved streets and a brand new rural water system. She also managed (and won) a campaign, the only of its kind at the time, to gain public support for one Oklahoma county's ten small fire departments. She wrote all of the campaign literature as well as running and writing for another campaign for the position of county commissioner. Rachael has also served as a speech and policy writer for several state and city level politicians in Oklahoma and Louisiana. She is considered a local expert on the Open Meetings and Open Records Act.

Relationships

18 Projects Completed

As a certified life coach and with extensive training in the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Rachael has written many newspaper columns on the subject of family interaction. Her down-to-earth, compassionate style and ability to get people to discuss their struggles openly, makes her family columns the clear favorites with the public.

Electronics

4 Projects Completed

Rachael has written engaging marketing copy that leads readers into the text with viable statistics and interesting facts regarding the newest electronics and current sales. She draws from her own experience using electronics in many environments.

Blog Post

64 Projects Completed

Rachael writes down-to-earth, blogs that drill to the core of real people and what makes them tick. She has written many blogs for her newspaper clients as well as personal columns.

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