Rebecca Gayle Howell is a poet, a translator, and an editor of place-based writing. Nick Flynn selected her debut collection, Render / An Apocalypse (2013), for the Cleveland State University Poetry Center’s First Book Prize. It earned critical acclaim from outlets including the Los Angeles Times, The Kenyon Review, and The Rumpus and was a bestselling book of the decade for Small Press Distribution.

Howell is also the author of American Purgatory (2017), which Don Share selected for Great Britain’s Sexton Prize and The Millions and Poetry London named a must-read. Howell’s other books include her translation of Amal al-Jubouri’s Hagar Before the Occupation / Hagar After the Occupation (2011), a finalist for the Best Translated Book Award, and What Things Cost: an anthology for the people (2023), coedited with Ashley M. Jones and selected as a best book of the year by Ms., the Southern Review of Books, and Poets & Writers. 

Her awards include fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Carson McCullers Center, the Kentucky Arts Council, and United States Artists. Howell is the longtime poetry editor for the Oxford American and a professor of poetry and translation for the MFA at the University of Arkansas. She was born in Lexington, Kentucky. From poetryfoundation.org/poets/rebecca-gayle-howell