Let’s make it weird.
Rachel Feltman’s first paying gig was organizing a bookshelf full of medical textbooks on vulvar disease at the age of seven, and they haven’t looked back since. She’s the former Executive Editor of Popular Science Magazine, which won the American Society of Magazine Editors award for best single-topic issue during her tenure. She still haunts the magazine’s halls as an Editor at Large to host and produce Popular Science’s podcast The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week. Rachel continues to work as a freelance journalist, as well as a content strategist and storyteller for brands, non-profits and academics working in science, health, tech, wellness and media. She has worked as a ghostwriter on op-eds and manuscript-length projects related to health and science. She also has experience in audiobook narration and writes genre fiction in her spare time.
In 2014 Feltman founded the Washington Post’s irreverent ‘Speaking of Science’ blog, which became known for such viral headlines as ‘You probably have herpes, but that’s really okay,’ and ‘Uranus might be full of surprises.’ She believes that breaking down fear and stigma is the best way to help people gain scientific literacy, and she believes that the best way to break down fear and stigma is to make as many jokes about poop as humanly possible.
Feltman has appeared regularly on ‘Cheddar,’ ‘Science Friday,’ and MSNBC to comment on science news, and has spoken at the annual meetings of the National Association of Science Writers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Online News Association, as well as the International Conference on High Energy Physics, the World Conference of Science Journalists, and the World Government Summit. She’s available to give talks and presentations on science, communication, media, technology, sex, writing, editing, and all the interesting intersections thereof. She loves mentoring up-and-coming writers, coaching mid-career folks looking to shift gears or simply polish up their writing skills, and teaching seminars on effective communication.
Bold Type, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, published Feltman’s debut book, “Been There, Done That: A Rousing History of Sex” in May 2022. She is represented by Jeff Shreve at Curious Minds.
Feltman has a degree in environmental science with a minor in writing from Bard College at Simon’s Rock. She also holds a masters in science, health and environmental reporting from New York University. She’s an occasional long-distance tandem cyclist, a talented cook, an embarrassingly out-of-practice musician, an enthusiastic amateur actor, and a nascent ceramicist. She hopes to one day become a bog body. Feltman lives in the NYC area with her surprisingly tall husband.