Rachel Slade

Rachel Slade spent a decade in the city magazine trenches at Boston magazine—first as the design editor, ultimately as executive editor. In 2015, she helped steer Boston to a top national award from the City and Regional Magazine Association.

Her two-part story about Boston’s secretive planning and development agency won national awards and laid the groundwork for Mayor Michelle Wu’s sweeping reforms to the city's planning processes.

In 2016, Yankee magazine ran Slade’s long-form narrative about the sinking of the container ship El Faro. A CRMA finalist for reporting, the story led to the national bestselling book, Into the Raging Sea.

Into the Raging Sea earned starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly; the Maine Literary Award for nonfiction; the Massachusetts Honor Book Award; and the Mountbatten Award for Best Book from the Maritime Foundation UK. It was a NYT Notable Book, an NYT editors’ pick, an Amazon editors’ pick for Best History, and among NPR’s Best Books, Paste magazine’s best books, Longread’s best books, Inc. Magazine’s 7 Best Business Books, the Maine Edge’s favorite books, and Book Scrolling best history books.

In 2021, Into the Raging Sea was adapted for a Harvard Business School case study. In 2023, Down East magazine named Slade’s book one of its top 25 “ New Maine Classics.”

Slade’s second book, Making It in America: The Almost Impossible Quest to Manufacture in the USA (and How It Got That Way), Pantheon/Penguin Random House, came out 1/9/24.

Slade’s editing and writing have won national awards in civic journalism, reporting, criticism, and reader service.

She earned her BA in political science from Barnard College and a Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. She splits her time between Brookline, Massachusetts, and Rockport, Maine.