Interview with Author Rich Renner

Rich Renner's story "Tender" was the first we chose to accept for our Spring 2026 Issue, and it helped set the tone for the rest of the works we chose to make up our largest publication yet. Rich's skillfully crafted prose and unexpected plot points make for an enjoyable read. So does the interview we had with him earlier in the quarter below. We think you'll enjoy!

What makes you keep writing, even when it's hard?

When I was four years old, I announced my intention to be a farmer when I grew up. When I was five, I switched careers. I would be a writer. By eleventh grade, hurtling toward a career as an astronautical design engineer, I mentioned to my guidance counselor that I couldn’t imagine doing math for the rest of my life. When I asked what he thought I should do, he replied, “I dunno. Maybe try communications.” So, I did. Between college classes, I would challenge myself to complete a short story, most of them handwritten on lined paper now stacked somewhere in a molding paper bag under my desk. A few poems landed in the campus lit mag. They were pretty weird, I guess, according to pushback of the editors, except one who championed them, mostly for irony’s sake. After my junior year, a summer job shooting and editing weddings fell into my lap, as did full-time work after graduation and eventually a producer job at a public television station. Writing for pleasure wasn’t easy in those years, when writing duties mostly meant meeting television deadlines, but I had read about Andre DuBus III, writing in his car early in the morning before his workday began. Inspired, I sought out others who might guide my writing routine in person, and that’s when I discovered Elizabeth Frankie Rollins, who changed my life. Around the turn of the current century, I found her walking in town. She wore a sandwich board advertising her writing classes, and I signed up. At the end of that first class, participants gathered to read our work. Raised on Rod Serling and Kurt Vonnegut, I wrote a meditative journey about a lone seabase crew member who survives when the planet explodes and the seabase is hurled into space amidst the ruined remnants. I was happy to discover at least one appreciative listener, who enjoyed the genre and praised the validity of my story steeped in hard science. I still think about that whenever I hit a wall. The fact that one person appreciated my story keeps me going. 

Advice on creating that you’ve learned by trial and error.

When you’re young, some wisecracking sage who might be a few years older than you will remind you to use it or lose it, because your creativity will dry up along with your flesh and your various ducts by the time you hit your fourth or fifth decade. And sure, creams and lubricants will treat your moisture deficiencies, but your cracked lips will be kissing goodbye those creative juices. When I heard that, I thought, no way! I can see a story anywhere I look. I can pick a spot, like, over there in the corner, and invent a magical, cosmic, dazzling, poignant, intriguing, thoughtful, vibrant, dystopian, hilarious, tragic, socially aware, humanist scenario and spin out a relevant and lovely beginning, middle, end you may savor and admire until that corner leads to the next corner and on and on and on. Then one day, I turned sixty. There I sat, knuckles lathered in the latest moisturizer my social media feed had rung up automatically, realizing I hadn’t written anything in a while and wondering how to start a new short story. I thought I could do it on my own, like when I was young. But now, the corner was empty and dredging up stories felt like wringing blood from a stone. After a while, I discovered my error. I could no longer do it by myself. So I joined my local writers’ group. And I signed up for a workshop about getting published. And after a year, the year of the pandemic, in fact, I had completed a number of poems and short stories that had been accepted for publication in literary magazines. The writing community is the moisturizer I needed to revitalize my creative juices. Yes, it really was that simple!

What's your favorite underappreciated novel or short story (a work you never hear anyone else talking about)?

Since 2003, I’ve been a volunteer organizer of the annual Collingswood Book Festival, so I’m in the company of local and regionally based authors all the time. Many of their books stand out for me, but I’ll list a couple of my favorites, whose signed first-editions grace my shelves. These days, a lot of people are appreciating Liz Moore. Her most recent novel is God of the Woods, but her earliest books are less known. Ten years ago, I read Heft, followed by The Unseen World, one of my favorites by her, combining some near-future hard science with family mystery. And then there is Janet Benton’s Lilli De Jong, historical fiction about an unwed Quaker mother in 1883 Philadelphia who decides to try to keep her baby. It’s a very different reading genre for me, yet I was riveted the first time I read this novel, drawn to the remarkable story, the rich description of the setting and the era, and the spotlight shone by the author on mothers, who, after all, are “raising the next human generation,” as the author reminds us. Worth a read, and a movie deal, I believe!

Do you have a favorite book on writing or creating that's been a helpful resource?

I mentioned author and teacher Frankie Rollins. Her support community, known as Fifth Brain Collective, is here: https://www.fifthbraincollective.com/.

Another resource, one which included the workshop I signed up for about getting published a few years back, is run by author and teacher Peter Murphy: https://murphywriting.com/.

If you were a cryptid, what would your name be and what would you eat?

What do you mean, if I were a cryptid? As for my name and what I would eat, you’ll have to ask Jack (see below).

What other lit journals are you into right now (and what do you like about them)?

My local favorite is Philadelphia Stories. When stories are great, having a geographical connection bolsters interest. Other lit journals that have been kind enough to include my work in past years stay on my radar, including The Avenue, Blood & Bourbon, Livina Press, Flora Fiction, and most recently, PHIL LIT Journal. 

Planes, trains, boats, or automobiles?

I love driving. I’ve never driven a plane other than in simulation. Or a train, although I’m writing a novel where that happens. Or a boat, except for a canoe. I love driving automobiles. Go figure. 

What’s your most recent “I was today years old when I realized …” moment?

If every cell in my body has been replaced by new cells many times over since, say, my sixth birthday, then how do I have such a vivid memory of opening my presents? The cells from that day are different. They might even be some of yours. But there I am, clear as cinemascope projected on my inner brain screen, unwrapping the box and opening it and sliding out the blue plastic ball and the handle thing with the hole for your thumb and you throw it up in the air and catch it with the handle thing and as long as your thumb is on the hole there will be enough suction to catch the ball. How can that be? Is my memory your memory too?

One sentence soapbox: 

I refuse to recognize daylight saving time, in case you’re wondering why I missed our meeting.

What is your writing strategy? Do you write every day with a rigid schedule, or are you more flexible with your practice?

Eight or nine years ago, I took a writing workshop with author Liz Moore. One of the first points she made emphasized the importance of establishing a routine. It could be anything, just whatever works for each of us. So, recalling Andre DuBus III’s early morning in the car routine, I awoke to my 6:30 alarm on a cold winter morning, made a bowl of matcha, started the fireplace, and worked on revising a short story I’d written a few years earlier. Through the winter, I kept up that schedule, modified it during the pandemic, but tried to write every day. By the way, that short story blossomed into a (still unfinished) novel. I left it on the shelf (actually, on my Google Drive) for a while before dusting it off a few months ago and submitting the original short story for publication. Mad Garden appeared in PHIL LIT Journal on March 12, 2026.

When did you realize you were weird?

I think it was eleventh grade when I was dropped into what was essentially an AP Lit class. Back then, that mostly meant having a ton of extra homework. And for me, it meant being in a class where I didn’t have any friends. After about a week of complaining about the homework, I requested they move me back to the traditional English class with my friends. Some might say that was weird, but I didn’t think it was. However, when the teacher started assigning me different work than the rest of the class, I started to wonder about myself. I don’t recall what my friends had to read, maybe “The Lottery,” which would have been fine of course, but my reading branched from there, to Vonnegut, and then, whoa, Flannery O’Conner. And I loved reading Flannery O’Conner! I could tell there was something weird about her, and it was all right up my alley! 

Do you think about your reader?

Whenever I’m writing, I’m thinking about the encouragement of that guy who enjoyed my short story in the first Frankie Rollins workshop class I mentioned earlier. And then, there’s Jack. My glass is half-empty, and that’s why Jack takes over. Jack is the self-editor phantom who hovers just above my left shoulder and whispers in my ear whenever I complete a sentence on the page. Jack smacks the back of my hand at the moment I type the period, startling me and demanding in his snarky tone that I read the sentence again, a constant reminder to add more gleam and polish because the raw sentence isn’t beautiful. It doesn’t matter if the raw sentence is authentic. Jack insists on flourish, analogy, pathos, before I even know what the sentence is supposed to be about. I think about Jack almost every time I write. I hate Jack.

Are you good at taking tests?

In high school, my friend Paul let me in on his test-taking secret. Before a test, he would rewrite his notes. Like a turntable needle etching a groove in vinyl, something about the kinesthetic learning process seemed to record written notes in his brain. I tried it, and guess what? It worked! Combination of kinesthetic learning and eidetic memory. I was able to visualize my handwriting and read back the notes on a screen in my head. The technique ushered me all the way through college. So, my answer is: yes, if I do the extra work. 

Tell us a secret. 

I already told you about Jack. So there’s that. Oh, and also this: in seventh or eighth grade, I swiped the briefcase off the desk of Mr. Somebody, one of my favorite teachers whose name I no longer remember. In place of the briefcase, I left a ransom note. I’d labored for an hour to snip letters from magazines that spelled out the demands, probably something about less homework or whatever. Mr. Somebody figured out that I was the culprit (or, more likely, I confessed for attention), and I returned his briefcase slightly damaged. When he discovered that I had bent a hinge somehow, Mr. Somebody backhanded my face. It stung. I never reported him, probably because, you know, I had kidnapped his briefcase. Also, that sort of punishment was normalized in those days. Looking back nearly five decades later, it’s obvious that he had overreacted, and I have to wonder how telling the principal might have changed the course of events. 

What was the best money you spent on something writing-related?

Signing up for workshops with Elizabeth Frankie Rollins was the best, and first, money I ever spent on anything writing-related, unless you count purchasing pens and notebooks before personal computers were invented. Years ago, Frankie moved to another part of the country, but is now available globally simply by signing up online! You can find her at https://www.fifthbraincollective.com/writing-classes

What is your favorite museum or gallery?

My artist wife is a member of Artists’ Gallery, a juried cooperative in Lambertville, NJ. Once or twice a month, she gallery-sits and I join her with my laptop. She paints and I write, surrounded by beauty all day. We both love the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and many of the museums and galleries in New York City. Whenever we happen to be in Midtown Manhattan, we visit the New York Public Library, where special exhibits have knocked our socks off in recent years!

Most triumphant thing you did as a teenager?

As a teenager, I had a history of beginner’s luck. I was a fast runner, and it made sense to play little league baseball, except I couldn’t really hit or throw very far, so they mostly used me to run the bases during practices. It was glorious. Hooray! The first time I bowled, strikes came easily, so they signed me up for the league, where I graduated downward to mediocrity the rest of the summer. They gave me a trophy anyway, which I still have in the basement. Hooray! In college, no longer a teenager chronologically but still feeling like one, I was a promising photographer and joined the campus newspaper, but failed to take the job seriously so they encouraged me to quit and work for the satirical magazine instead. Eventually, I graduated upward to become photo editor. Hooray! Also in college, the first time I submitted poems to the campus literary magazine, three were accepted. Hooray! I didn’t have anything published again until thirty-six years later.

What is weird?

For me, weird is normal. I just wrote a Substack note about the weird aspect of grief.

What was the inspiration for your story?

“Tender” is about an administrator of a horticultural cooperative who recognizes the power of her prize hybrid orchid, which may be capable of exacting revenge. The story is, in part, my initial reaction to a British study that questions what it means for domestic violence programs “to work.” That, and some deep-focus study music, ignited this tale in meditative autopilot. Looking back, I realize I have a fascination with gardens and growth and moral dilemmas and organelles and transpiration and creation. Recently, PHIL LIT Journal published my short story “Mad Garden,” drawn from a brief battle in the long war with our suburban lawn.

What do you hope readers experience from your work?

First, I hope readers, or even just one reader, will weed through all my attempts to make pretty phonemes, whether read aloud or in the mind, and come to a place of relatability and acceptance. Every once in a while, usually separated by decades, a person will say to me, or indicate otherwise: I really get you. It’s all about human desire to connect. I love the idea that we all share atoms. I share atoms with you. Maybe not the first atom that big-banged into being from a singular dot—what is it now, almost fourteen billion years ago? Wow, time flies—but atoms I’ve collected over time and cobbled together to create my own organic construct that houses the spirit I—sure, why not?—share with you. Second, I hope readers will be inspired to learn more about topics I’ve broached. A ton of research goes into the stories I write, no matter how short the story. How cool would it be if readers realize that and start to research on their own as a result of reading what I’ve written? Sometimes people tell me I should’ve been a teacher. Instead, I was the series producer of a weekly program about education that aired on our PBS affiliate for over twenty years. That job cemented my absolute respect for the teaching profession, and was as close as I got to teaching, aside from possibly inspiring my readers to learn something. I hope they do! 

How do you combat loneliness?

I’m pretty sure I’ve never felt any effects of loneliness. I’m blessed to be surrounded by family and friends. Thinking back over the years, maybe there was a brief period during my college days when circumstances and the overwrought melodrama of hormones kicked up the dust storm on alone time, but honestly, I sort of relished it and wrote short stories. Well, there’s an answer. To combat (not the word I would use) loneliness, I wrote.

Thoughts about artichokes?

Artichokes rarely find their way into my diet. Whenever they do, they are questioned, physically examined, mildly sniffed, questioned again, because I guess there’s a part you can eat, but I really don’t think all that hard about them. 

What’s the point of all this, really?

Pretty much everything Vonnegut said and wrote.

Rich Renner is an Emmy award-winning media producer whose work has appeared in literary magazines, as well as onscreen and on stage. He is a volunteer organizer of the annual Collingswood Book Festival. Rich lives with his artist wife in New Jersey, where he feeds his backyard birds and tends a garden in his dreams.