Rachel Kelly

Rachel Kelly, Baroness Altrincham is a writer, and authored the books Black Rainbow, Walking on Sunshine, The Happy Kitchen, Singing in the Rain and You'll Never Walk Alone. She is married to Sebastian Grigg.

Career
Rachel Kelly worked as a journalist for The Times newspaper in the UK from 1991 to 2003. She now writes for The New Statesman, The Guardian, and the Sunday Times and has served as a commentator on the BBC. She is an ambassador for SANE and Rethink Mental Illness and runs wellbeing workshops for companies, schools and universities.

Books
Her first book Black Rainbow: How Words Healed Me — My Journey Through Depression was published by Hachette in the UK, Quercus in the US as well as in France and Sweden. Black Rainbow appeared on the Sunday Times bestseller list. The book details her experience of depression, including a hospitalisation for suicide risk, and how poetry helped her recover. The work is an autobiographical account of her life. Black Rainbow was published in France by Larousse under the title La Nuit N’en Finit Pas (the title is suggestive of a song in French by the British singer Petula Clark in 1961).

Her second book Walking on Sunshine: 52 Small Steps to Happiness (the title suggestive of a song by Katrina and the Waves 1983) was published by Short Books in 2015 and has been translated into German, Arabic, Mandarin, Polish, Korean, Turkish and Croatian as well as being published in the USA, Canada, and Australia. The chapters revolve around activities and other ideas that have helped Kelly in the past in dealing with her depression. Walking on Sunshine reached #4 on Amazon’s best-seller list in the UK as well as #1.

Her third book The Happy Kitchen – Good Mood Food with nutritionist Alice Mackintosh was published in 2017 with Short Books in the UK and as The Happy Diet with Simon & Schuster in the US. In the New Statesman, India Bourke wrote of the work that, "Drawing equally from science and art, each chapter (one for every week of the year) offers salves for both body and mind, from probiotics to poetry." The book discusses the role of nutrition in the treatment of depression, and includes recipes that were developed for that reason.

In 2019 she published Singing in the Rain: 52 Practical Steps to Happiness – An Inspirational Workbook (title inspired by the broadway song Singing in the Rain). In The Telegraph, James Le Fanu wrote of the work that, "Since being incapacitated by a couple of severe episodes of depression in her thirties, journalist and Telegraph contributor Rachel Kelly has been canvassing fellow sufferers through her website and workshops, inviting them to report simple practical ways they have found to keep themselves on an even keel. These range through rising early to allow for a leisurely start to the day, wearing colourful, morale-boosting clothes, making a point of identifying and enjoying simple pleasures and reciting, when stressed, private prayers or mantras."

Her latest book published in 2022 by Hachette is You’ll Never Walk Alone: Poems for life’s ups and downs.

Personal life
Kelly is married to Sebastian Grigg, 4th Baron Altrincham. They have five children. She uses her name Rachel Kelly on all her writing and mental health work.