Writing Fellow Rebecca Gayle Howell Wins Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry
Every year since 1987, the Sewanee Review has honored a distinguished poet in the maturity of their career with the Aiken Taylor Award in Modern American Poetry. Established by the physician and poet K. P. A. Taylor in honor of his elder brother, the modernist poet and story writer Conrad Aiken, the Aiken Taylor Award has celebrated poets such as Howard Nemerov, Gwendolyn Brooks, Wendell Berry, Louise Glück, and Billy Collins.
The Fine Arts Work Center is pleased to announce that Rebecca Gayle Howell is the recipient of the 2025 Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry. Howell is a two time Writing Fellow, who spent time with the Work Center from 2010-2011, and again in 2014-2015. Howell also serves as a member of the writing committee at FAWC. Following her acceptance, the author and editor will visit the University of the South this fall for a reading and celebration of her remarkable work. A lecture on her work by Corey Van Landingham will be given at this year’s ceremony, and it will also be available in the Spring 2026 issue of the Sewanee Review.
Rebecca Gayle Howell is a genre-rousing writer, translator, librettist, and editor. Her work has received critical acclaim from such outlets as The Los Angeles Times, Poetry London (U.K.), Asymptote, Limelight (AUS), Publisher’s Weekly, MINT (India), Classic FM (U.K.), and The Kenyon Review, and she has been translated into Spanish and German. Howell’s Best Book of the Year honors include those from The Best Translated Book Awards, Foreword INDIES Awards, The Nautilus Awards, The Banipal Prize (U.K.), Poets & Writers, Ms. Magazine, The Millions, Library Journal, Bitter Southerner, and others. Among her other awards are the United States Artists Fellowship, the Carson McCullers Fellowship, the Kentucky Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship, the Pushcart Prize, and two winter fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. This fall she will receive the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry.
