Rachel Snyder Professor Literature
- Additional Positions at ĢƵ
- Professor
- Degrees
- MFA, Creative Writing, Emerson College
BA English/History, North Central College - Languages Spoken
- English, some Spanish
- Favorite Spot on Campus
- I'll never tell!
- Bio
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Rachel Louise Snyder is the author of Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade, the novel What We’ve Lost is Nothing, No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us and the memoir Women We Buried, Women We Burned. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, and the New York Times magazine, among many others, and she is currently a Contributing Writer for the New York Times opinion pages. In 2024, her memoir received the Independent Book Award and was named a “Best Book” of the year by Kirkus and Oprah Daily. In 2021, she was a Guggenheim Fellow and is currently a fellow for the Polarization and Extremism Research Innovation Lab (PERIL) at ĢƵ. No Visible Bruises was awarded the 2018 Lukas Work-in-Progress Award, the 2020 Book Tube Prize, the 2020 New York Public Library’s Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism and the Sidney Hillman Book Award for social justice. It won Best Book in Translation in Taiwan in 2021 and has been translated into more than fifteen languages. It was named one of the best books of 2019 by the Los Angeles Times, Esquire, Amazon, Kirkus, the Library Journal, the Economist, and BookPage; the New York Times included it in their “Top Ten” books of 2019. No Visible Bruises was also a finalist for the Kirkus Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the LA Times Book Award, and the Silver Gavel Award. Currently, Snyder is working with Stanford University’s Criminal Justice Lab on criminalized and incarcerated survivors of domestic violence and is at work on her fifth book, tentatively entitled: Regilla: How Men Pay the Price for Women’s Violence. For six years, Snyder was a correspondent for public radio’s “Marketplace”, based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Originally from Chicago, Snyder holds a B.A. from North Central College and an M.F.A. from Emerson College. Originally from Chicago, she has a joint appointment as a professor in journalism and creative writing at ĢƵ. In the winter of 2025, she was a Visiting Professor of Law at Stanford University. And, finally, nothing can stand between her and petting a cute dog.
Snyder’s work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, the New Republic, Redbook, the LA Times, and many others. She holds an MFA in fiction from Emerson College and is one of the country's foremost experts on intimate partner and family violence. A former correspondent for public radio, she has contributed to the shows “This American Life” for which she won an Overseas Press Award, “Marketplace” and “All Things Considered.” Originally from Chicago, she has traveled to more than 55 countries and lived in both London and Phnom Penh, before settling in Washington, DC, where she holds a joint appointment as an Associate Professor of Creative Writing and Journalism at ĢƵ.
- See Also
- Literature Department
- For the Media
- To request an interview for a news story, call ĢƵ Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.
Teaching
Fall 2024
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LIT-704 Adv Creative Nonfiction Wrkshp
Scholarly, Creative & Professional Activities
Selected Publications
- New York Times Magazine
- National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered
- Public Radio International’s “This American Life”
- American Public Media’s “Marketplace”
- New Republic
- Redbook
- Men’s Journal
- Glamour
- Chicago Tribune
Media Appearances
- Marketplace
- The World
- This American Life
- Chicago Magazine
- Chicago Public Radio
- Los Angeles Times
- Chicago Tribune
- Bloomberg News
- Christian Science Monitor
- Publisher’s Weekly
Honors, Awards, and Fellowships
- Lowell Thomas Award, Overseas Press Club, Best Interpretation of International Affairs
- Society for Professional Journalists, General Excellence
ĢƵ Experts
Area of Expertise
Creative writing, literary journalism, culture of globalization
Additional Information
Snyder is an author, journalist, and public radio contributor. Her first book, Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade, was published by W. W. Norton and came out in paperback in April 2009. The Library Journal called it one of the “best business books” of the year. An excerpt of the book, which ran on the radio show "This American Life," won an overseas press award. Her second book, a novel set in Oak Park, Illinois, What We’ve Lost is Nothing, published in January 2014. Her work has also appeared in numerous magazines and on national public radio. Before settling in Washington, D.C., she lived in London and Cambodia. Snyder is the host of NPR's Latitudes, a radio program that explores innovative solutions to global issues.
For the Media
To request an interview for a news story, call ĢƵ Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.