About
Rachel Fox McLeod is an award-winning author, screenwriter and creative producer, whose projects often straddle page and screen. A former pop vocalist and entertainment writer for a national women’s magazine, Rachel is a recipient of the Josephine Ulrick Literature Prize, GREW Prize for Fiction and a Varuna - The National Writer's House Fellowship. Her second novel, Disgraceful, will be published by Simon & Schuster in February 2026.
A voracious reader, who still checks the back of wardrobes for Narnia (just in case), Rachel grew up on film sets in London in the 1980s—her family working on Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Superman, Labyrinth, and more. She’s been fascinated by stories and how to breathe them into life, for as long as she can remember. Her film & television credits include Wanted (Network 7); Mako Mermaids (Netflix and Disney); The Timeshifters, and The Bachelor—a job which meant scouring the streets for cute boys to match up with cute girls. A tough job, but somebody had to do it.
​
Rachel is often in demand as a story consultant and script doctor (if she told you which scripts she fixed, she’d have to kill you) and has projects in development with several BAFTA and EMMY award-winning producers in Australia and internationally.
Her upcoming novel, Disgraceful, was awarded a fellowship at Varuna – The National Writers House in 2023, with the television adaptation selected for Screen Queensland’s Series Lab with U.S. show-runner Bradford Winters (The Americans, Berlin Station, Clickbait), as well as the Stowe Story Lab (U.S.) and The London Screenwriters Festival (U.K.). She is also developing a black comedy television series (and accompanying podcast), Monster Nature, with talented and hilarious creator, Amy Ingram, from award-winning theatre company, The Good Room. She has previously published an anthology of short stories, Chrysalis, as well as the first book in the Kat Alley Mystery Series, Dead Famous (under the pseudonym, Ruby Fox).
Rachel is committed to writing powerful, often-hilarious stories driven by women. She’s allergic to the phrase 'strong female character’—give her complex, flawed, and messy any day—and is passionate about authenticity and storytelling, taking her philosophy from Anais Nin— “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”
She currently resides in a cute city apartment, with books and daydreams for company—mostly dreams of wandering the Scottish Highlands and being a pop-star (although let’s face it, that ship has probably sailed).
She loves tattoos, 80s-90s pop culture, hot yoga, the F word, and cheese, but not in that order.
Cheese always comes first.