PULLMAN, Wash. – Writer and translator Rebecca Gayle Howell will give a free, public poetry reading and answer questions at 5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23, in the Museum of Art as part of the Washington State University English Department Visiting Writer Series.
A native of Kentucky, Howell is senior editor for the Oxford American quarterly literary magazine of works from or about the South. Her debut poetry collection, “Render/An Apocalypse,” was a finalist for ForeWord’s Book of the Year and was selected for the Cleveland State University Poetry Center First Book Prize in 2012.
She is the translator of Amal al-Jubouri’s verse memoir of the Iraq War, “Hagar Before the Occupation/Hagar After the Occupation,” which was a Library Journal Best Book of Poetry for 2011 and was shortlisted for Three Percent’s Best Translated Book Award.
Her third book, “American Purgatory,” was selected for The Sexton Prize. London’s Eyewear Publishing will release it in the United Kingdom and United States this year.
Howell has won the Pushcart Prize and held fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and Carson McCullers Center. She earned a Ph.D. in English from Texas Tech University, M.F.A. in poetry and poetry in translation from Drew University and M.A. in applied linguistics from the University of Kentucky.
The WSU Visiting Writer Series brings poets and writers to campus for creative readings, class visits, workshops and collaborative exchanges. Howell’s appearance is cosponsored by the English Club, Common Reading Program and Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho.