Renée Branum | Humanities and Social Sciences | SIU

Renée Branum's writing tends to radiate toward narratives that explore family histories and personal mythologies. She is a lover of lush lyrical language and celebrates books that freely mix elements of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry into a unique hybrid blend. Dr. Branum completed a PhD in Fiction at the University of Cincinnati and has Masters degrees in both Fiction and Creative Nonfiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the University of Montana.

Renée Branum's writing tends to radiate toward narratives that explore family histories and personal mythologies. She is a lover of lush lyrical language and celebrates books that freely mix elements of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry into a unique hybrid blend. Dr. Branum completed a PhD in Fiction at the University of Cincinnati and has Masters degrees in both Fiction and Creative Nonfiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the University of Montana.

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. 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).

Dr. Branum is a proud native of Carbondale, Illinois. She currently lives on a farm in nearby Makanda, where she is working on a second novel and gathering research for a nonfiction book about the cultural history of Bigfoot.