Rebecca Gayle Howell (born August 10, 1975, in Lexington, Kentucky) 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 Lexington, Kentucky on August 10, 1975. She earned her BA and her MA at the University of Kentucky, her MFA at Drew University, and her PhD at Texas Tech University.
Career
Poetry
Her first book Render / An Apocalypse was selected by Nick Flynn for the Cleveland State University Poetry Center's First Book Prize (2013). Render / An Apocalypse also received a cover review in The Los Angeles Times, The Nautilus Award, and a finalist shortlist 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 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.
In March 2023, Howell released What Things Cost: an anthology for the people, which she co-edited with Ashley M. Jones and associate editor Emily Jalloul (University Press of Kentucky). The collection received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, a notable anthology for 2023 by Poetry & Writers, a best poetry book of 2023 by Ms. Magazine, and a best Southern book of 2023 by Southern Review of Books. What Things Cost is called by the publisher, "the first major anthology of labor writing in nearly a century," and all proceeds go to benefit The Poor People's Campaign.
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.
Howell's English-language version of Claudia Prado's The belly of the whale / El Interior de la ballena (Editorial Nusud, 2000) will be released in 2024 by Texas Tech University Press. El interior de la ballena 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, The Common, The Southern Review, and elsewhere.
Librettos
In 2019, she began a collaboration with classical composer Reena Esmail. A Winter Breviary, their solstice carol cycle, 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. In 2022, The Gesualdo Six recorded the entire cycle for Choral Music from Oxford with the Gesualdo Six. The work was performed and toured by choirs like The Gesualdo Six, The Sixteen, and Voces8 during the 2022 holiday performance season. In 2023 "The Unexpected Early Hour" was collected in Carols for Choirs 6 (Oxford University Press).
Publishing
Howell is the poetry editor of Oxford American. Since 2014, Howell has published writing by poets like Nathaniel Mackey, Nikki Giovanni, Tarfia Faizullah, Tyehimba Jess, C.D. Wright, Kwame Dawes, Ashley M. Jones, Ada Limón, Dean Young, Crystal Wilkinson, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Jericho Brown. In 2016, Howell and her fellow editors received the National Magazine Award for General Excellence, marking the first time in the magazine's 24-year history to receive the award.