Renée Branum graduated with an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Montana in 2017. She received an MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 2013 where she was a Truman Capote Fellow and a recipient of the Prairie Lights Jack Leggett Fiction Prize. Renée’s fiction has appeared in Blackbird, Tampa Review, The Georgia Review, and Narrative Magazine. Her nonfiction essays have been published in Fields Magazine, Texas Review, True Story, Chicago Quarterly Review, Denver Quarterly, Hobart, and The Gettysburg Review. Her essay “Certainty” was awarded first prize in The Los Angeles Review’s Fall 2016 Nonfiction Contest. Her essay “Bolt” received first place recognition in The Florida Review’s 2017 Editors’ Awards. She received two Pushcart nominations for work published in 2017. She currently lives and writes in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she is working to complete a PhD.