Rachel McAlpine

Rachel Phyllis McAlpine (born 1940 in Fairlie, New Zealand) is a writer and web content strategist. She is the author of 30 books including poetry, plays, novels, and books about writing. Since 1996 she has trained people how to write business content for a digital and electronic world. In 2007 she launched Contented Enterprises jointly with Alice Hearnshaw to provide scalable, cost-effective online training courses for business writers.

McAlpine and her five sisters grew up in small-town vicarages in Canterbury, New Zealand. When she was 10 the family moved to Christchurch, where she attended Christchurch Girls High School and Canterbury University, graduating BA and Senior Scholar. She was married twice: to civil engineer Grant McAlpine (1969–1981) and to artist Michael Smither (1988–1992).

After four years in Geneva she moved to Masterton, New Zealand. There she raised four children, taught high school, wrote her first poetry book, and gained a Dip. Ed (Massey University) and B.A. Hons (Victoria University of Wellington).

McAlpine says that her career swerved abruptly in May 1995, when she first saw a web site. As a writer, she immediately realized that traditional writing styles would need to change for this new medium. She began teaching short courses on writing and managing web content in 1996, writing her first book on the topic, Web Word Wizardry, in 1999.

As Curriculum Director of Contented Enterprises, McAlpine created online writing courses. Contented teaches writing skills needed for blogs, social media, intranets, web sites, email, e-learning, and all documents that are managed electronically. Contented courses go beyond the traditional print-based curriculum for business writing: they show how to make content accessible and searchable. McAlpine's courses and conference speeches are original and playful (as befits a poet), while delivering solid information.

Besides her professional work, McAlpine writes two personal blogs. She lives in Wellington, dances with the Crows Feet Dance Collective, walks a lot and does Tai Chi. She also lobbies for plain language communication from government agencies.

2010 Writer in residence, Chateau de Lavigny, Switzerland

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