Writing: Renée studied English with an emphasis in Creative Writing at Butler University, and holds a MFA in Creative Writing from West Virginia University where she won the Rebecca Mason Perry Award for Outstanding First-Year MFA Student and the Russ MacDonald Prize for Graduate Writing. Renée also holds a Certificate of Professional Achievement in Narrative Medicine from the Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University University.
Her writing has appeared in Chelsea, Mid-American Review, Perigee: A Journal of the Arts, Paste, Poets & Writers, Crosstimbers, Naugatuck River Review, Honey Land Review, Dossier, Stymie, ABZ, Prime Number, Blue Lyra Review, Switchback, Fiction Writers Review, Moon City Review, Redux, Cleaver Magazine, Barely South Review, Saw Palm, Bluestem, Bellows American Review, The Superstition Review, South 85 Review, Rathalla Review, Typehouse Magazine, Triggerfish Critical Review, River Teeth, Midwestern Gothic, The Nassau Review, Ruby, Bellevue Literary Review, PopMatters, The Gettysburg Review and elsewhere. She is a contributing writer to Synapsis: A Health Humanities Journal.
Her work has been included in the anthologies Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods: Fiction and Poetry from West Virginia; Not A Muse, A Generation Defining Itself; The Appalachian Anthology of Writers; and in Keeping Track: Fiction of Lists.
Renée served as Assistant to the Director of the West Virginia Writers’ Workshop 2007-2017 and was Director of the Workshop in 2019. Renée has served on the book reviews staff at Los Angeles Review, and was a member of the National Book Critics Circle. She co-hosted the literary podcast SummerBooks and co-founded the journal Souvenir.
Awards: In 2011, Renée was the Emerging Writer-in-Residence at Penn State Altoona. In 2018 she was awarded the Susan S. Landis Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts at the West Virginia Governor's Arts Awards. In 2019 she won the Outstanding Public Service Award from the Eberly College of Arts & Sciences at WVU and in 2020 she won the Nicholas Evans Award for Excellence in Advising at WVU. In 2022, Renée won the Prize for Prose from The Nassau Review.
Dance: While her performing career was cut short by the onset of Rheumatoid Arthritis, Renée has been on the faculty of various studios, guest instructor, and coach. Renée is an American Ballet Theatre (ABT®) Certified Teacher, who successfully completed the ABT® Teacher Training Intensive in Primary through Level Seven of the ABT® National Training Curriculum. A portion her certification received financial assistance from the West Virginia Division of Culture and History, and the National Endowment for the Arts, with approval from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts.
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