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.