Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachel Pilcher.
Rachel, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I began writing like many do—writing stories for my parents when I was a child. When asked what I’d like to be when I grew up, I’d say a writer and a teacher. I’m lucky enough to do both. I obtained my BA in English and History from Texas Wesleyan University, and after several years working in the publishing industry, became certified to teach secondary English Language Arts. After several years as a high school English teacher, I decided to give librarianship a try. In 2014, I realized that I wanted to spend more time writing, so I brainstormed ideas that would help me move out of the school library and into a writing life. I easily fell into the idea of teaching writing as a way of earning extra income. Out of this, my first business, Fort Worth Writer’s Boot Camp was born. As I moved away from hosting other writing instructors and took on more freelance teaching work, the name changed to Rachel Pilcher Writing Workshops. After meeting so many talented writers through my critique group, in 2016 I launched a micro-press, Sleeping Panther Press.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It definitely has not been a smooth road. When you rely on the public to want to take a writing workshop or buy a book, you are relying on an unknown variable. You hope that people will find out about your work, and you hustle to make that happen by building an online presence, getting to know others who do the same work as you and even spend money on advertising. The first few years I was in business, I had a brick and mortar location. I rented out an office in a converted church building on Berry Street over by TCU. The building had conference room space that could be reserved for meetings. There were months that I made money. There were months that I broke even with what was owed for rent.
Then there were the months that I was glad I had a full-time day job because the money for rent had to come from somewhere! I was given the opportunity to host writing sessions at a local bookstore, The Last Word Bookstore, with the only request being that I allowed for breaks in class so that my students could browse the store, so in 2017 I left the rented office and stored everything for the business in my home. While it was nice not to have to pay rent, although I did buy a lot of books. The store, unfortunately, closed by the summer of 2017, so my business was homeless. I had to get creative with locations for workshops and be open when others asked for me to teach. This has led me to holding writing sessions at libraries, in living rooms, church fellowship halls, and outdoor writing festivals like Writers in the Field in Mansfield.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Rachel Pilcher Writing Workshops story. Tell us more about the business.
Rachel Pilcher Writing Workshops offers writing workshops and seminar specializing in helping writers find their voice. My specialty and the topic of my most popular writing workshop/seminar is working with beginning writers to actualize their writing. This workshop is called Write Fearlessly, and it guides new writers through what may be keeping them from doing their writing. It is taught through a series of journal entries and has been held as a three hour seminar, as well as an expanded 4-week workshop. It will soon be released in full as a self-paced online workshop available through my website: www.rachelpilcherwritingworkshops.com. If all goes well, I will begin releasing more online workshops on a regular basis. I also regularly upload videos to YouTube with writing advice. Search for Rachel Pilcher Writing Workshops on YouTube to find my channel!
My other business, Sleeping Panther Press, is a micro-press. It may not seem like much to say that I’ve published seven titles in four years, but as a micro-press, that is quite a few titles. So, what is a micro-press? It’s a publishing company run by one person. I’ve done all of the interiors and exterior design work on most of the titles, including the cover unless the concept is more than I can artistically do. The first publication was the now annually published literary journal Panther City Review. I have three other titles in publication: Deer Dancer by Richard J. Gonzales, Waylon County: Texas Stories by Heath Dollar, and Classroom Management for the Real World by me. I did not design the cover for Deer Dancer. That was done by the amazing Kara McEuen-Powell. You can check out the publications at www.sleepingpantherpress.com
I am proud of both of my businesses. They work well with each other. There is no way I’d be able to do either one if they didn’t. I always say that Sleeping Panther Press is the imprint of Rachel Pilcher Writing Workshops because it wouldn’t exist without me being able to meet other writers. There are very few female-run small/micro-presses out there. I know of only a handful in Texas.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I think I am lucky to be able to do something that I love. Maybe that’s not exactly the question being asked, but the fact that I can come up with ideas, then figure out a way to follow through with them, seems extremely lucky to me. I always have something to do and never have time to be bored. Any time I’ve had what might be considered bad luck on some part of my business—either a class didn’t make, or a book didn’t sell the way I thought it should—I’ve been able to see that as an opportunity to find a better way to make it work. I had the launch of Panther City Review #4 in November 2019. It didn’t sell as well as I had expected, and I was ready to actually throw in the towel on it. I decided to just take a break on publishing the next issue and concentrate on other aspects of my business.
In December 2019, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time. The last few months have been spent helping her through her mastectomy and healing. I would not have had time to work on any publications, so it was a good thing I hit pause on publishing for a while. I know that several writers are disappointed that an issue will not be coming out this year, but having the power to just say, “No, I’m not going to worry about putting that out right now” has helped me out considerably.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.rachelpilcherwritingworkshops.com
- Email: rachel@rachelpilcher.com
- Instagram: @rachel.pilcher
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RachelPilcherWritingWorkshops/
- Other: https://www.sleepingpantherpress.com
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