Kirsten Reneau [Host: Drew Hawkins]

On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Drew Hawkins interviews Kirsten Reneau.

Kirsten Reneau is the author the debut full-length essay collection, Sensitive Creatures, which is out now with Belle Point Press.  of two chapbooks, and her work has been published in The Threepenny Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Reed Magazine, and others. 

Drew Hawkins is a writer and journalist in New Orleans. He's the producer and host of Micro, a podcast for short but powerful writing. You can find his work on NPR, The Guardian, Scalawag Magazine, HAD, and elsewhere. His essay, "Bottom of the X," came out recently in the summer 2024 issue of Autofocus.

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Full conversation topics include:

-- Kirsten's debut book Sensitive Creatures

-- three different selves in three different stages

-- sexual assault and gendered violence

-- writing the very personal

-- infusing nature in the writing

-- images and animals

-- younger self as ideal reader

-- ideal writing situations

-- post-writing situations

-- stages of the manuscript into final book

-- editing literary mags and writing

-- organizing a collection

-- cicada season 

-- turning the page with CNF

-- the thing that scares you

-- implicating others

-- reading magical realism

-- care
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Podcast theme music  by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's his music project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.

The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.