Rebecca Reynolds was born and grew up in Washington, D.C. She received her B.A. from Vassar College, an M.A. from Rutgers University, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan. She has been the recipient of a Hopwood Award, a New Jersey State Council on the Arts grant, and the 1998 Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society for America for "Daughter of the Hangnail" (New Issues Press, 1997). She works at Douglass College, the women's college of Rutgers University, as an assistant for academic services.