Rebecca Wigod was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and came to Vancouver, British Columbia, as a child. Her father, Jacob, began teaching in the University of British Columbia's English department. Warren Tallman, who ignited a love of poetry in George Bowering, was one of his colleagues.

Wigod has a bachelor's degree in German and a master's in linguistics. Her thirty-three-year career in print journalism began in 1977. She worked briefly at the New Zealand Herald, the Sydney Morning Herald, and Vogue Australia. She wrote features at Victoria's Times Colonist and then spent twenty-two years at the Vancouver Sun. Best of all was editing its books pages from 2000 to 2010. She had the pleasure of interviewing such writers as Julian Barnes, Oliver Sacks, Helen Dunmore, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She first met Bowering in 2005, after he'd finished his term as Canada's first Parliamentary Poet Laureate. Something about his style and manner piqued her interest.

She is married, lives in Victoria, B.C., and has two grown children.