Rhea Tregebov is the author of seven volumes of poetry: Remembering History, No One We Know, The Proving Grounds, Mapping the Chaos, The Strength of Materials, (alive): Selected and new poems and, most recently All Souls’ (2012, Signal Editions, Véhicule Press). Her poetry has received the Pat Lowther Award, the Malahat Review Long Poem prize, Honorable Mention for the National Magazine Awards (poetry) and the Readers’ Choice Award for Poetry from Prairie Schooner. Her first novel, The Knife-Sharpener’s Bell, was published in 2009 from Coteau Press and is the recipient of the 2010 J.I. Segal Award for fiction, as well as being listed as a Top 100 Book for 2010 by The Globe and Mail. The Knife Sharpener’s Bell was also shortlisted for the 2012 Kobzar Prize and 2012 Manitoba Reads competition. Tregebov’s second novel, Rue des Rosiers, will be released by Coteau Books in April, 2019.

Arguing with the Storm: Stories by Yiddish Women Writers, the anthology which she co-translated and edited, was published in March 2007 in Canada by Sumach Press and in March 2008 in the United States by The Feminist Press of CUNY. She has published translations of poetry from Spanish and French and has edited and/or co-translated translations of poetry, fiction and nonfiction from a variety of languages, including Finnish, Catalan and Bosnian.

Tregebov has also published five popular children’s picture books, including Sasha and the Wind, Sasha and the Wiggly Tooth, What-if Sara, The Extraordinary Ordinary Everything Room and the classic The Big Storm, which won the inaugural CNIB Tiny Torgi PrintBraille Book Award; young jurors who read braille chose their favourite PrintBraille book from a short list prepared by teachers and librarians. Illustrator Maryanne Kovalski was also nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Award for Illustration for The Big Storm. Tregebov’s picture books have been recommended in A Guide to Canadian Children’s Books as well CBC radio’s Children’s Literature Panel. She has twice toured for the Canadian Children’s Book Week, and her books have been recommended by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre. Her picture books have been translated into French and Danish.

She is also the editor of ten other anthologies of essays, poetry and fiction for a number of presses, most recently Naked in Academe: 50 Years of Creative Writing at UBC (2014). She studied at the University of Manitoba, Cornell, and at Boston University, where she earned a Master of Arts degree in English and American literature. Before being hired in January 2005 to teach at UBC, she taught creative writing for many years in the Continuing Education program at Ryerson University in Toronto. She also worked as a freelance editor of adult and young adult fiction as well as poetry.