Rachel Gambling is a writer from Southend-on-Sea, UK. She has a BA in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Warwick, where she began hosting her radio show Peek Show on RAW 1251AM. She completed her BA in lockdown and adapted Peek Show into a sex and relationships education Instagram and podcast. During this time, she studied Gender and Sexuality at Birkbeck, University of London, and graduated with a PGDip in 2022. She has worked as a sex and relationships educator for a UK charity since 2021. Now, she performs at poetry open mics, writes film reviews, sex and relationships articles, and argues with her cat about her feeding schedule. She lives with her dad, the vicar, and her mum, who is a really nice lady.
Rachel is always writing angsty poetry whenever she has a spare moment. Her work covers themes of disillusionment, agnosticism, and hope. Through a confessional and bluesy style, Rachel expresses her deepest cynicisms through arguably the most pretentious form of writing. You can find her performing at open mics in Essex and submitting her poems to magazines and competitions.
Sexual Health Charity
September 2021 - Present
Rachel works as a sexual health outreach worker for a UK charity. She works in the community with beneficiary groups that traditionally struggle to access sexual health services. She provides HIV and STI testing drop-in clinics, professionals’ training, relationships and sex education, and sexual health advice. She also works with the Media and Communications Team at times, creating written and video content for their channels. Prior to this, Rachel created content for the charity on a voluntary basis from October 2019. Links to this work are available on request.
Peek Show
April 2019 - December 2020
During her second year at the University of Warwick, Rachel created her radio show Peek Show. This was broadcast on RAW 1251AM, Warwick’s student radio station. This was broadcast for a year, occupying a prime time spot during its second season, covering a wide variety of sexual health topics and discussing these with students from a range of different courses across the university. This was later adapted into a relationships and sex education Instagram after Rachel graduated from Warwick and retired in late 2020. Peek Show is still available to listen to on Mixcloud.
The Girl’s Bathroom
June 2019 - January 2020
From June 2019, Rachel was a Script Editor and Assistant Director on The Girl’s Bathroom, a short film created by Sofia Hadley-Johnson. She was involved throughout the pre-production and production phases, eventually taking on the role as Co-Producer alongside Sofia and appearing as Drunk Girl in the film. The film received funding from Daisie as part of their Wonder Women competition and had an entirely female cast and crew. The Girl’s Bathroom is available to watch on YouTube.
The Groovy Crew
April 2018 - April 2019
In her third term of her first year at the University of Warwick, Rachel created the radio show The Groovy Crew alongside Indigo Douglas, which was later adapted into a podcast. It was made as the official radio show of Warwick Writing Society, broadcast on RAW1251AM and then became its own entity as a podcast. It was a creative writing podcast heavily underlined with comedic elements, with Rachel and Indigo inviting their friends on to goof around and talk about creativity. The Groovy Crew is still available to listen to on Mixcloud.
Creators Media, Inc.
May 2016 - November 2017
Whilst studying for her A-Levels, Rachel was scouted by a Community Manager at Moviepilot to become a Verified Creator for Moviepilot. She then wrote as a freelance entertainment writer for Creators Media, covering topics like mental health issues in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, female empowerment in musicals, and sexual liberation in Bridget Jones’ Baby. She retired from this role when Moviepilot was rebranded, and received 31,000 reads across all of her articles. These are available to read on request.