Rebecca Gayle Howell (born August 10, 1975, in

Lexington, Kentucky Lexington is a city in Kentucky, United States that is the county seat of Fayette County, Kentucky, Fayette County. By population, it is the List of cities in Kentucky, second-largest city in Kentucky and List of United States cities by popul ...

) is an American writer, literary translator, and editor. In 2019 she was named a United States Artists Fellow.

Education

Howell was born to a working-class family in

on August 10, 1975. She earned her BA and her MA at the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentu ...

, her MFA at

Drew University Drew University is a private university in Madison, New Jersey. Drew has been nicknamed the "University in the Forest" because of its wooded campus. As of fall 2020, more than 2,200 students were pursuing degrees at the university's three scho ...

, and her

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

Texas Tech University Texas Tech University (Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU) is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas. Established on , and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the main institution of the five-institution Texas Tech University Sys ...

, where she studied unde
Curtis Bauer
Howell also apprenticed under the Southern experimental art photographer and writer

James Baker Hall James Baker Hall (April 14, 1935 – June 25, 2009) was an American poet, novelist, photographer and teacher. Biography James Baker Hall was born in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1935. He was raised in a southern family of means and social standing, ...

, as well as the leading Jewish feminist poet,

Alicia Ostriker Alicia Suskin Ostriker (born November 11, 1937) is an American poet and scholar who writes Jewish feminist poetry.Powell C.S. (1994) ''Profile: Jeremiah and Alicia Ostriker – A Marriage of Science and Art'', Scientific American 271(3), 28-3 ...

. Other mentors include

Carolyn Forché Carolyn Forché (born April 28, 1950) is an American poet, editor, professor, translator, and human rights advocate. She has received many awards for her literary work. Biography Forché was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Michael Joseph and Louis ...

Nikky Finney Nikky Finney (born Lynn Carol Finney on August 26, 1957, in Conway, South Carolina) is an American poet. She was the Guy Davenport Endowed Professor of English at the University of Kentucky for twenty years. In 2013, she accepted a position at t ...

Gerald Stern Gerald Daniel Stern (February 22, 1925 – October 27, 2022) was an American poet, essayist, and educator. The author of twenty collections of poetry and four books of essays, he taught literature and creative writing at Temple University, Indi ...

Wendell Berry Wendell Erdman Berry (born August 5, 1934) is an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer. Closely identified with rural Kentucky, Berry developed many of his agrarian themes in the early essays of ' ...

W.S. Merwin William Stanley Merwin (September 30, 1927 – March 15, 2019) was an American poet who wrote more than fifty books of poetry and prose, and produced many works in translation. During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thema ...

, and

Jean Valentine __NOTOC__ Jean Valentine (April 27, 1934December 29, 2020) was an American poet and the New York State Poet Laureate from 2008 to 2010. Her poetry collection, ''Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965–2003'', was awarded the 2004 Na ...

Career

Poetry

Her first book ''Render / An Apocalypse'' was selected by

Nick Flynn Nick Flynn (born January 26, 1960) is an American writer, playwright, and poet. His writing is characterized by lyric, distilled moments, which blur the boundaries of various genres. Many of his books are structured using a collage technique, wh ...

for the

Cleveland State University Poetry Center The Cleveland State University Poetry Center is a literary small press and poetry outreach organization in Cleveland, Ohio, operated under the auspices of the English Department at Cleveland State University. It publishes original works of poetry b ...

's First Book Prize (2013). ''Render / An Apocalypse'' also received The Nautilus Award and was a finalist for Foreword Review's INDIES Book of the Year. In 2016, ''Burnaway: Art of the South'' named it a Best Book of the Year. In 2020 literary critic Jennifer Ashton featured ''Render / An Apocalypse'' in her chapter "Ecology, Ethics, and the Apocalyptic Lyric in Recent American Poetry" for ''Apocalypse in American Literature and Culture'' (Cambridge University Press). ''American Purgatory,'' her second book, was selected by

Don Share Don Share is an American poet. He is the former chief editor of ''Poetry'' magazine in Chicago. He grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. Career Share, who was named the editor-in-chief of ''Poetry'' in 2013, previously served there as Senior Editor. E ...

for The Sexton Prize and was published in both Great Britain and the United States in 2017. ''American Purgatory'' was also a finalist for Foreword Review's INDIES Book of the Year. The book was named a must read by ''The Courier-Journal,The Millions'' and ''Poetry London.'' Other reviewers included ''ArtsATL, Nashville Review,'' ''The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette,'' and ''The Rumpus.''

Translation

Howell is the English-language translator of Amal al-Jubouri's verse memoir of the Iraq War, ''Hagar Before the Occupation / Hagar After the Occupation'' (Alice James Books, 2011). This translation, carried out in collaboration with Husam Qaisi and al-Jubouri, was a finalist for the 2012 Best Translated Book Award and the U.K.'s Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation. International reviewers included ''The Wall Street Journal's'' ''Mint'' and ''Asymptote''. ''Hagar'' received a Best Book of Poetry for 2011 from ''Library Journal'' and a Best Book by an Arab Woman from ''Book Riot'' in 2017. In 2016 Howell began work wit
Claudia Prado
on an English-language version of Prado's ''The Belly of the Whale. El Interior de la Ballena'' (Editorial Nusud, 2000) is a collection of Patagonian agrarian poetry. It received the bronze Concurso Régimen de Fomento a la Producción Literaria Nacional y Estímulo a la Industria Editorial del Fondo nacional de las Artes. Howell's and Prado's versions have appeared in ''The Sewanee Review'', ''Waxwing'', and ''The Common'.''

Librettos

In 2019, she began a collaboration with classical composer

Reena Esmail Reena Esmail (born 11 February 1983) is an Indian-American music composer of Indian and Western classical music. Esmail has been commissioned to compose pieces for ensembles including Amherst College Choir and Orchestra, Santa Fe Pro Musica, Consp ...

. ''A Winter Breviary,'' their solstice carol triptych, was published by Oxford University Press in 2022. The third of these carols, "The Unexpected Early Hour," was premiered at the Los Angeles Master Chorale Festival of Carols, December 4, 2021, then recorded and broadcast by the BBC on December 24, 2021.

Publishing

Rebecca Gayle Howell is the Poetry Editor of ''

Oxford American The ''Oxford American'' is a quarterly magazine that focuses on the American South. First publication The magazine was begun in late 1989 in Oxford, Mississippi, by Marc Smirnoff (born July 11, 1963). The name "Oxford American" is a play on ''T ...

''. In this role, she works to create a new profile of Southern poetics. She is also known for commissioning longer poetic works''.'' Since 2014, Howell has published writing by poets like

Nathaniel Mackey Nathaniel Mackey is an American poet, novelist, anthologist, literary critic and editor. He is the Reynolds Price Professor of Creative Writing at Duke University and a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets. Mackey is currently teaching a p ...

Nikki Giovanni Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni Jr. (born June 7, 1943) is an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. One of the world's most well-known African-American poets,Jane M. Barstow, Yolanda Williams Page (eds)"Nikki Giovanni" ''E ...

Tarfia Faizullah Tarfia Faizullah is a Bangladeshi American poet. Born in 1980, she was raised in West Texas. She traveled to Bangladesh in 2010 to interview survivors of rape by Pakistani soldiers during the 1971 Liberation War, the birangona. ''Seam'' (SIU, 2014 ...

Tyehimba Jess Tyehimba Jess (born 1965 in Detroit) is an American poet. His book '' Olio'' received the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Biography Early life Tyehimba Jess was born Jesse S. Goodwin. He grew up in Detroit, where his father worked in that city's ...

, C.D. Wright,

Kwame Dawes Kwame Senu Neville Dawes (born 28 July 1962) is a Ghanaian poet, actor, editor, critic, musician, and former Louis Frye Scudder Professor of Liberal Arts at the University of South Carolina. He is now Professor of English at the University of N ...

Ashley M. Jones

Ada Limón Ada may refer to: Places Africa * Ada Foah, a town in Ghana * Ada (Ghana parliament constituency) * Ada, Osun, a town in Nigeria Asia * Ada, Urmia, a village in West Azerbaijan Province, Iran * Ada, Karaman, a village in Karaman Province, Tur ...

, Dean Young,

Crystal Wilkinson Crystal E. Wilkinson is an African-American feminist writer from Kentucky, and proponent of the Affrilachian Poet movement. She is the winner of a 2022 NAACP Image Award, a 2020 winner of the USA Fellow of Creative Writing, and a 2021 O. Henry Pr ...

Naomi Shihab Nye Naomi Shihab Nye ( ar, نعومي شهاب ناي; born March 12, 1952) is an American poet, editor, songwriter, and novelist. Born to a Palestinian father and an American mother, she began composing her first poetry at the age of six. In total ...

, and

Jericho Brown Jericho Brown (born April 14, 1976) is an American poet and writer. Born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana, Brown has worked as an educator at institutions such as University of Houston, San Diego State University, and Emory University. His poe ...

. In 2016, Howell and her fellow editors received the

National Magazine Award The National Magazine Awards, also known as the Ellie Awards, honor print and digital publications that consistently demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative techniques, noteworthy enterprise and imaginative design. Or ...

for General Excellence, marking the first time in the magazine's 24-year history to receive the award. Howell is also an Assistant Editor and Letterpress Printer fo
Q Avenue Books
and a Contributing Editor for

Pushcart Press Pushcart Press is a publishing house established in 1972 by Bill Henderson (a one-time associate editor at Doubleday) and is perhaps most famous for its Pushcart Prize and for the anthology of prize winners it publishes annually. The press has ...

. In 2015 she began freelance editing place-based poetry collections, including

's
Perfect Black
' (University Press of Kentucky, 2021)'';'' Julia Bouwsma's
Work By Bloodlight
' (Cider Press, 2017); Nomi Stone's
Kill Class
' (Tupelo Press, 2019); and Savannah Sipple's
WWJD And Other Poems
' (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2019). In 2017, she founded Fireside Industries'','' an imprint of the

University Press of Kentucky The University Press of Kentucky (UPK) is the scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and was organized in 1969 as successor to the University of Kentucky Press. The university had sponsored scholarly publication since 1943. In 194 ...

. Among the titles Howell published with Fireside are first books b
Tanya Berry
and Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle.

Awards

*201
United States Artists Fellow
*2017 Foreword Reviews Indies Award. Finalist. For ''American Purgatory (Black Springs Press Group, 2017)''. *2016 The Sexton Prize. Selected by

. For ''American Purgatory'' (Black Springs Press Group, 2017). *2016 Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship,

Kentucky Arts Council The Kentucky Arts Council, established in 1966, is the Kentucky state arts agency, and is responsible for developing and promoting support for the arts in Kentucky. Part of the Kentucky Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet, the Kentucky Arts Council ...

. *2016

for General Excellence, shared with the editors of ''The Oxford American'.'' *2014

Pushcart Prize The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are ...

. XXXIX. Best of the Small Presses. Edited by Bill Henderson. *2014 Poetry Fellow, 2nd year. Selected by C.D. Wright.

Fine Arts Work Center The Fine Arts Work Center is a non-profit enterprise devoted to encouraging the growth and development of emerging visual artists and writers through residency programs, to the propagation of aesthetic values and experience, and to the restoratio ...

Provincetown, MA Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States Census, Provincet ...

. *2013

Nautilus Book Award The nautilus (, ) is a pelagic marine mollusc of the cephalopod family Nautilidae. The nautilus is the sole extant family of the superfamily Nautilaceae and of its smaller but near equal suborder, Nautilina. It comprises six living species in t ...

, Silver. For ''Render /An Apocalypse'' (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2013) *2013 Foreword Reviews Indies Award. Finalist. For ''Render /An Apocalypse'' (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2013) *2012 Cleveland State University Poetry Center First Book Prize. Selected by

. For ''Render /An Apocalypse'' (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2013). *2012

Best Translated Book Award The Best Translated Book Award is an American literary award that recognizes the previous year's best original translation into English, one book of poetry and one of fiction. It was inaugurated in 2008 and is conferred by Three Percent, the onlin ...

.Three Percent. Finalist. For ''Hagar Before the Occupation / Hagar After the Occupation'' (Alice James Books, 2011). *2012

Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation The Banipal Prize, whose full name is the Saif Ghobash–Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, is an annual prize awarded to a translator (or translators) for the published English translation of a full-length literary work in the Arab ...

. Finalist. For ''Hagar Before the Occupation / Hagar After the Occupation'' (Alice James Books, 2011). *2010 Poetry Fellow.

Books

*''A Winter Breviary,'' written by Rebecca Gayle Howell, composed by Reena Esmail. (Oxford University Press, 2022). *''American Purgatory'', poems by Rebecca Gayle Howell. (Black Spring Press Group, 2017). *''Render / An Apocalypse'', poems by Rebecca Gayle Howell. (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2013). *''Hagar Before the Occupation / Hagar After the Occupation'', poems by Amal al-Jubouri and translated by Rebecca Gayle Howell with Husam Qaisi. (Alice James Books, 2011).

References

Book Review: Render / An Apocalypse , Gulf Stream Literary Magazine
/ref>

External links

Interviewer: WMFA.Reviewer: Poetry LondonReviewer: Arts Atlanta

Reviewer: The Rumpus Interview: Out of Our Minds with J.P. Dancing Bear.
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Howell, Rebecca Gayle 1975 births Living people 21st-century American poets American women poets 21st-century American translators 21st-century American women writers