The Porch Visiting Writers Series presents Rebecca Gayle Howell, in conversation with Ciona Rouse

As part of our FY27 Visiting Writers Series, the Porch is thrilled to welcome Rebecca Gayle Howell. She is a poet, translator, editor, and librettist from Kentucky. Her newest book is ERASE GENESIS. Her genre-bending work merges verse, fiction, libretti, visual art, and translation, receiving critical acclaim from outlets like Publisher’s Weekly, Poetry London (U.K.), Limelight (AUS), The Kenyon Review, Gramophone (U.K.), Ms. magazine, Southern Review of Books, Asymptote (INTL), Bitter Southerner, Poets & Writers, MINT (IND), Classic FM (U.K.), and The Los Angeles Times. Howell’s awards include two fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Pushcart Prize, and the Carson McCullers Fellowship. For a decade she served as the Poetry Editor for the Oxford American, the second in the magazine’s history. In 2019, Howell became the first Kentucky writer to be named a United States Artists Fellow. In 2025, she received the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry. Her latest book is Erase Genesis, just out from Project Poëtica / Bridwell Press.

Howell will read from her work, answer audience questions, and engage in conversation with poet, editor, and educator Ciona Rouse, the author of Vantablack, the first chapbook of Third Man Books (2017). Her poetry has appeared in the journals Oxford American, Wildness, Booth, The Account, Still, Talking River, Gabby Journal, Matter: a journal of political poetry and commentary and other publications. She has been featured on Poets.org’s Poem-A-Day and has work selected by Ada Limón for the podcast The Slowdown. Stay afterwards for a short reception and book signing! Suggested donation of $20.