Renée Branum’s stories and essays have appeared in several publications including The Georgia Review, Narrative Magazine, The Kenyon Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Lit Hub. Her story “As the Sparks Fly Upward” was included in Best American Nonrequired Reading’s 2019 anthology. She has earned MFAs in Fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Creative Nonfiction from the University of Montana. She recently received a PhD in Fiction from the University of Cincinnati. In 2020, she was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Prose Fellowship to aid in the completion of her first novel, Defenestrate (which was published by Bloomsbury in January 2022). She currently lives and teaches writing workshops in Cincinnati, Ohio
When she isn’t writing, she can often be found sneaking chili dogs into screenings of old movies.
Renée is represented by Frances Coady of Aragi Inc.