"Rene Denfeld keeps writing books I have to read in one sitting because I can’t stop." ~Rebecca Solnit
Lit Salon presents a meandering & deeply intimate conversation on writing, life, love & the in-between with bestselling novelist, celebrated justice worker & incredible human being, Rene Denfeld
Photo: Rene Denfeld; photo credit: Brian McDonnell
Back in 2020, I had never met Rene Denfeld, who was then an award-winning and bestselling author of three novels (her fourth, Sleeping Giants, came out last month). But, I had just signed the contract for my own debut memoir, The Part That Burns, and I needed blurbs. Blurbs are a hard thing for most writers, and maybe hardest of all for debut authors with indie presses, meaning no agent and no marketing team to help.
It says a lot about Rene and her work that she was the first author I reached out to for a blurb. Here is what I emailed to Rene back then:
Your novel, The Child Finder, challenged, in the best way, my ideas of what beautiful writing can be and what it can do for readers and for the world. Your essay “Four Castaways Make a Family” carved out an honoring space for me and others like me, both as a one-time child in foster care and a former foster parent. Last but not least, your consistent inspiring, encouraging, and courageous presence on social media—the way you fight for writers, for the underserved, and for love—helps so many of us keep going through these shitty times. We’ve interacted a bit on social media about fostering, and for those conversations, I have been most grateful.
My first literary book, a memoir in fragments, comes out next year from Split/Lip Press …
I went on to describe my book a bit, then asked politely for the blurb, acknowledging it was a reach, and affirming that I understood it wasn’t possible.
Rene responded the same day—to a writer she had never met and whose work she did not know!—saying:
I'd be happy to try to read—no promises! Can you email me the pdf? Also your deadline, and please send weekly reminders (serious about that!).
This exchange exemplifies Rene as precisely who she is: generous, honest, kind, and refreshingly direct.
I am overjoyed now to bring you today’s in-depth conversation with a writer whose work has been praised by Margaret Atwood as "astonishing" and by Rebecca Solnit as writing that must be read in one sitting. As for Rene’s most recent novel, Sleeping Giants, it was described as “enthralling, a heartfelt mystery” by Publishers Weekly and “a transfixingly atmospheric, brilliantly plotted, heart-seizing drama” by Booklist, among many other accolades.
You can buy Sleeping Giant everywhere books are sold, including right here.
Luckily for me, I had the pleasure of sitting down for coffee with Rene about a week ago in her hometown of Portland, Oregon when my husband and I were there to visit our granddaughter. It was a gorgeous, sunny afternoon, so Rene and I took a table outside on bustling Alberta Street. Outside, but in full shade. “Not even dappled sun for me,” Rene laughed as I pulled out my computer and notebooks, neither of which I ended up using, because we were too soon pulled into the kind of deep conversation that calls for one’s full attention and whole heart. In other words, I didn’t want to miss out on the chance to get to know Rene as a friend just for the sake of quotes.
I had the luxury of setting aside my interviewing tools, because we’d already accomplished most of our exchange over email in the week leading up to our meeting, freeing us to talk mostly off the record, about whatever pulled us. As a result, we meandered through the marvel of our many similarities—we are the same age, we both experienced displacement in adolescence, we are both self-taught writers, and we both work in prisons, among other overlaps. But we also had the chance to talk about the realities of contemporary publishing, the complexity of guilt and innocence as concepts, the problematic aspects of the true crime craze, and the inherent classism in the literary world, not the least of which being the pay-to-play nature of the establishment’s inner workings.
Our sprawling conversation was so engaging that, much to my dismay, we forgot to take a selfie! But I’ll have another chance, I know, because I’ll meet Rene in Portland again next time we visit our granddaughter. In the meantime, I’m waiting eagerly for Rene’s next novel which, like her first four books, is influenced by her work as a licensed death row investigator.
In the conversation that follows, Rene and I talk about all of the above and more, including the ways in which we’ve both managed, and still manage, to keep our writing alive against the odds. And at the end of this interview, you’ll also find a writing exercise inspired by Rene’s topmost advice for writers, about telling the truth. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did, and I hope to meet you in the comments to talk about it, and to read your work if you try the exercise.
Jeannine Ouellette: First things first, you said in another interview with
that you delete entire manuscripts from your computer. Wow. Talk about non-attachment. Tell me more.Rene Denfeld: I get rid of all my past work, sold or unsold, by permanently deleting it. For me this opens up valuable real estate in my brain, for the creation of new work. And it’s my way of reminding myself that the words will not run out. It’s the opposite of a scarcity mindset and it works for me.
JO: I love that you are so clear on what works for you. It’s inspiring. And I'm also deeply curious about your path to becoming a writer. You mentioned on social media about being self-taught, which makes sense given your background as a foster kid. Can you say more about that?
RD: Just to be clear, I wasn't in the foster system, though there were times in my life I probably should have been. I grew up in a lot of poverty and with neglect, and ended up homeless as a child. By the time I was in my early teens I was living on the streets.
JO: Thank you for that clarification! I desperately did not want to be in the foster system, but couldn't get out of it once I was in. They'd call the police if I left. I don't know which path would have been better, but here we both are. We made it. And we're both writers. Which in a certain way is not that surprising. Life prepared us to be writers.
RD: I always wanted to be a writer. When I got off the streets one of the first things I did was buy an old typewriter at a thrift store. I had this pink bean bag chair I found on the street, and I dragged it up to my crappy studio apartment. It had a door that locked, and I was safe for the first time in what felt like forever.
I worked at McDonalds and felt awfully spiffy in that burgundy uniform. I was sixteen and felt like my life was just starting. I remember going into the bathroom at work and applying this purple eyeshadow that matched my uniform.
I learned to write by reading. I believe you can absorb almost everything you need to know by reading. I like to joke that I got my free MFA from the public library.
I didn't publish my first novel until I was in my 40s. I had to get to a point where I felt I had a right to tell a story. Words take up space, and for those of us from trauma backgrounds, feeling you can take up space is hard. A lot of times we create personas to fill that space, and those personas can interfere with our true work.
JO: I love this, this story of becoming, and of reading to write, and of how we learn to bring ourselves to the page, and of publishing debut books when it’s too late for the 30 under 30 lists. I was 52 when The Part That Burns came out, by the way. And I had a thrift-store typewriter, too! And, as a former foster kid myself, I also learned to write by reading and teaching myself. I started college one year after graduating from high school and leaving foster care, but I dropped out in my second year, partly because I needed to work to pay my rent and I was getting married and having a baby. I felt I needed an income more than I needed a degree.
I never finished that abandoned English major, but did get an MFA in my late 40s, but by that time I'd been writing and publishing for 25 years, and the MFA was something of a formality for teaching, and for finding a way into a literary community that I had never been part of--I very literally wanted to make friends and learn how to do this writing thing in community instead of in the solitary way I'd always done it before. I'd love to hear your thoughts on writing community, how you build it—you're an extraordinary literary citizen—and any words of wisdom for writers struggling to find a way into community, especially writers on the outside of the establishment, as I was, and as you perhaps were?
RD: Community is so important. We need the community, but we also need to believe in our own voices, our own experiences. I think this is the struggle for many writers from marginalized communities. At least it was for me. It can feel like the mainstream wants to deny our stories. Or turns us into stereotypes.
Like for me, I was homeless. I did what girls do on the streets to survive. But in the pages of many books girls like me exist just to be killed. We are in literature to be torn apart, to be another nameless dead hooker to advance some plot or make the hero look good. The fact we have whimsy, we have joy and hopes and humanity, just isn't part of the standard literary treatment.
Far too often people from marginalized communities are the subject of literature. But we are not welcome at the table of creators.
I remember talking about this with the late, great Katherine Dunn. She came from horrific poverty and abuse, too. People in the literary establishment did not know what to make of her amazing, brilliant novel Geek Love. It was a masterpiece, but the literary establishment couldn't deal. Some newspapers refused to review it. She got terrible reviews from others, including this awful NYTBR review from a famous poet who, of course, taught in a prestigious MFA program. I'm sure it stuck in his privileged craw that this woman who had been a stripper and a house painter was just as talented and full of voice as anyone he had ever taught, maybe even himself. That book went on to become a classic, but it wasn't because of the literary establishment. It was because readers loved it and related to it.
I don't want to sound down on MFAs. I know a lot of people like you who got one. If you can afford them and want to do it, by all means, go. But don't feel it is the only path.
Here's my big advice to aspiring writers: however you pursue writing, the focus needs to be on you. You are the conduit. You are the truth teller. Focus on what helps grow you as a writer. If something doesn't help you grow, if it poisons your spirit or interferes with your voice, you don't need to do it.
Back to the community, I think it is good to find your tribe. It might be online, or at a library writing group, or in your town. One of the best ways to create community is helping others. I love being a literary citizen. I do all I can to support other writers, especially other writers from marginalized backgrounds. I host writers in conversations, mentor aspiring writers and blurb when I can.
JO: Wow. This—“we have whimsy, we have joy and hopes and humanity”—BAM, that’s it right there. Thank you for this.
And I did not know any of that about Geek Love and it’s both heartening and disheartening, for obvious reasons. We could go on all day about issues of access and classism in the literary establishment. And MFAs. Which are in one sense supposed to provide the exact kind of access we’re talking about, and maybe traditional residential MFAs do. I did a low-residency program, and I never met an agent, an editor, or any other power player who could help me as a result of my MFA. I am still glad I did it, but it didn’t provide access in some of the ways some programs do. Instead, I’ve really had to focus the work itself, and then trying to build community through my own effort and literary citizenship, and, honestly, I’ve looked to people like you for inspiration and example.
You were the first writer I dared to reach out to when I had to face down that scary task of asking for blurbs for the The Part That Burns, and you were so generous, and so kind, and also so clear, saying yes, provisionally, based on whether you loved the book, and also, you made me promise to remind you of the deadline, and made sure to stress that you were not kidding about the reminders! I love that. And I was so grateful, and am still so grateful. Thank you.
I'm so moved by the time you put into your literary citizenship given everything else you do, truly.
RD: Oh, you are so welcome! Isn't it the best part of being a writer, meeting other writers and finding kinship through story?
You wrote a fantastic book and I was so honored to read it. That's funny you mentioned the reminders. I've learned to ask people to send them. You know how it is, you say yes to something and it gets lost in email and then you feel like a giant asshole.
I think of story as the great democracy. It's one place where the playing field should be level. You have a story, I have a story. The man on the corner has a story, and the woman in the diner. Nobody's story is better than another. When readers are welcomed into the story, they join the democracy. We are all sitting around the fire, listening together. That's why the stories we tell are so important. It's important to have people like you and me in the story.
There are parts of being a writer that are just plain hard. Publishing is unfair and rejection is common. My own motto is "bitterness is the enemy of art." I try to stay focused on the future. I want to create, and to be part of this world in a wholesome, helpful way. I can't do that from a place of bitterness. Rage? Sure, righteous anger can be motivating. Sadness can drive us. Grief is real. But bitterness is poison, and I refuse to drink it.
JO: I love that, "Bitterness is the enemy of art … bitterness is a poison and I refuse to drink it.” But I also love that you acknowledge the hard parts, the unwritten rules of the establishment, and the way it leaves some writers out, especially writers who don't have "certain backgrounds." I think one of the ways I have dealt with that in my own writing life is by actively seeking to reach out to and work inside of communities where writers have limited access, which is one of the reasons I teach writing in prisons. Which is another thing we have in common—I teach creative writing in prisons, and you do justice work with death row inmates, right? I would love to hear more about that work, actually.
RD: I'm a licensed Investigator in the state of Oregon. I've done this work for many years. Basically, when you see a case on the news where someone has been exonerated off death row, or found not guilty because of a defense investigation, that's the kind of work I do. I used to be the Chief Investigator at a public defense office.
I've worked on hundreds of cases, and I still do the work. I love my job. People share the most difficult parts of their life with me. There really is no greater honor.
JO: What does it take to be a licensed investigator? Do you need a law degree, or is it a wholly different process?
RD: You don't need a degree, though you are required to take continuing legal education that can be doctorate level. Basically, I'm required to be trained and have expertise in all sorts of issues, from junk science to rules of evidence.
JO: Amazing. I’m really intrigued that this work is basically open to anyone willing and able to do the training. That’s fascinating and kind of encouraging. It’s such important work. You’ve earned a lot of well-deserved recognition for it, too—and it seems like a major part of who you are, maybe as much as the writer side of yourself?
RD: I see myself as a person first, then a mom, a writer, and justice worker. I don’t feel one supersedes the others. But I do imagine myself always writing. I’m very lucky to follow my passions.
I often counsel aspiring writers that they need a day job. Find one that feeds your soul and changes the world for the better. We all have a story to tell.
Tell me more about your work!
JO: Well, it's interesting, because my day job as a writer and lecturer at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health used to be pretty technical and therefore quite divergent from my literary work. But it has since become much more integrated, with my Writing for Public Health class and a small initiative we launched during the pandemic using narrative medicine, which draws on my literary teaching background. So right now my day job and my art are criss-crossing. But even when that was not the case, I was grateful to have a day job. Always. And I also tell writers that day jobs are a very good idea! Unless they have another source of significant support, like a trust fund or a spouse's day job. I do not ask my art to pay my bills. I have never asked my art to pay my bills. Which frees me, honestly, to write what I want. It lets me take risks with my art that I would not otherwise be able to take, and that’s the right path for me. It may not be for everyone, but, for me, removing the financial pressure from my literary work makes all the difference.
RD: I love that. I see my justice work as integrated into my writing, though of course they are separate careers. Maybe because they both come from my true self.
JO: That’s so evident. It’s easy to see that from a distance. And these different parts of your work life seem to meaningfully intersect, too. I’d love to hear you describe how your life and your work informs your fiction?
RD: I've been told I write auto-fiction, but I don't like the term.
JO: I have very mixed feelings about that too!
RD: Tell me why! For me, all fiction is the reflection of our experiences.
JO: Yes. All portraits are self portraits, all of our work draws from life, one way or another.
RD: Exactly. In our most sublime writing moments, I do think we connect to something far greater to ourselves. But it is us that is doing the connecting, and we are humans with experience. We bring our own biases into the work. The more honest we can be without ourselves about that, the better.
To give an example, a lot of people write offenders as these monster stereotypes. You know, as villains who were born bad. But that's not the whole truth. Most crime isn't being committed by brilliant sociopaths who get away with it because they outsmart the police. That's not a true story, either about the offender or the police.
Some of my books are inspired by cases I've worked, and others by my being a longtime foster and adoptive mom. Also, my trauma history comes into place, and my knowledge of what it is like to grow up poor. So yeah, my experiences come up in my fiction. Isn't that true for everyone?
JO: I agree with you one thousand percent. I actually proposed and facilitated a panel at AWP in 2018 on writing from the lower class. I just don't think we talk enough about class, and how class operates in these sometimes invisible ways.
RD: AMEN SISTER.
JO: And the class issue brings me another question I’ve wanted to ask you. You're known for your fiction, but I found you through your Modern Love essay, which is one of my all-time favorite pieces in Modern Love. Do you see yourself writing more nonfiction in the future, and why or why not?
RD: Right now, I'm more comfortable telling the stories of others. Maybe I still have more work to do. In the meantime, I feel so much gratification writing my novels, I think I'll stick with that.
But that essay? It's one of my favorite things I've ever written, because it is such a celebration of love. Love for my kids, love for the shame and trauma we experience, love for the world, and maybe, even, love for myself.
JO: I am glad it's one of your favorite things too. It's stunning. If anyone missed it, well—prepare for something wonderful to enter your heart. Which is also true of your latest novel, Sleeping Giants. So let's talk about this beautiful book, Rene. I know from reading other interviews with you that it all started for you with an image of a little boy running into the ocean.
When did the image come to you, how fully formed was it, tell me more! And can you describe the process of following this image into a full-throttled story?
RD: I was at the Oregon beach, which is very wild and tumultuous and frankly dangerous, when this image of a little boy running into the ocean came to me. From there I teased out the story. Why was the boy on the beach that day, and why did he do this terrible act to himself?
It ended up being a story of residential homes for troubled boys, and the way kids are treated in the foster system. It's also a story about sibling bonds, and how we need family, no matter how we make it. And for the first time I have animal characters in a book! A rabbit and a polar bear.
JO: I taught a whole class on writing animals—it was actually requested by the women at one of the prison facilities where I teach—and I learned so much teaching that class! I loved the rabbit in this novel. I loved the way the rabbit and the boy reflected and refracted each other’s emotional realities. I am not going to give any spoilers, but it was also heartbreaking. That’s something you do well—convey heartbreaking moments without being saccharine. Since you write a lot of heartbreaking moments, I’d love to hear any craft advice you have for writers on this issue.
RD: Oh, that’s a favorite topic of mine! I think that icky feeling comes when the scene doesn’t feel real. Hence the term saccharine, which, as opposed to real sugar, isn’t really sweet. It tastes fake, right? A scene where the emotions are not real, where the reader feels either manipulated or there is emotional bypassing going on, that feels fake to the reader.
In terms of craft advice, I’d say first, be comfortable with the scenes you are writing. If you are not personally comfortable with trauma, it’s going to come through.
Secondly, I think a lot of writers use graphic violence as a barrier between themselves and the honest horror of a moment. Bloodshed can literally be a wall between the reader and true connection with the moment. Honesty doesn’t need a lot of detail. It doesn’t need exploitation or graphic detail. It can be captured in one true word.
That’s what I’m looking for as I write. That one true word that captures the truth. Even of our hardest moments. And I’m going to be thinking of the sanctity of the victim the entire time. Even fictional victims deserve respect and sanctity.
JO: I really felt that in Sleeping Giants, and in your work overall. And I appreciate it, too. I won’t give any spoilers, but the ending of the book surprised me! Did you know the ending of the book before you got there?
RD: I did not. I wrote most of it and then got there and went holy shit, I didn’t see that coming!
JO: That gives me shivers, just like the ending of the book did! That’s so inspiring. I love the idea of our stories surprising us. It’s the absolute best part of the process of writing, in my opinion—to be genuinely surprised by the work. Those “holy shit” moments are what it’s all about. Okay, another craft question—your narration is omniscient. We’re seeing a little more of that, I feel like, in the last few years, but it's still not the norm in contemporary fiction. Anything you want to say about writing omniscience?
RD: I love omniscience, but not when it is dictatorial. I love it when it is a wide open place where many truths can inhabit. There are nine billion people on this planet. Omniscience is the place where all their voices can be heard.
My craft advice on omniscience is to remember it is not you, the author. It is a place where other POVs can come speak through you.
JO: Okay speaking of POV, you use multiple POVs and not just in Sleeping Giants. You braid plotlines and timelines, too. In fact, Sleeping Giants, with its separate timelines, is partly almost like near-historical fiction, and it feels expertly researched, from the mechanisms of the institutions in the book to the treatment approach at the center of the plot, the holding time. Rene, that was so disturbing, and then I read in another interview with you that this treatment is still happening today. I am just, I’m speechless and horrified. Is this something you already knew about before you started writing Sleeping Giants?
RD: Sadly, I did. Which is one reason I wanted to write this book. If you knew there were places that tortured children, you’d want others to know about it too. That’s how I feel about this so-called treatment method. The fact that it is used against kids in care is one reason people don’t know about it. It should be against the law.
JO: It should absolutely be against the law! I cannot believe this “treatment” still happens. It’s horrifying. There is so much that’s broken in the system. And you already know this, but our family is caught up in the system right now, with my youngest adult child—for new readers here, that’s
, who collaborates with me here at Writing in the Dark, is adopting a little boy out of foster care right now. Any wise words for our family?RD: I consider adoption from foster care to be the best thing that should have never happened. I truly wish our society took care of people better, so children wouldn’t even have to enter care. In a better world it would be very rare. But it is what it is, and when adoption happens for whatever reason, I believe we can celebrate our love for that child, and that includes everything they have experienced.
It’s very important to embrace all of a child, and that includes their past and history and culture and other family. Our goal is not to replace, but to expand. Love multiples, like diamonds. The more we love, the more we can love. It’s not a competition and it is not the same as having children by birth. I’m not the only mom my kids have, and I am one thousand percent okay with that.
JO: I appreciate this so much, and I know Billie will too. It’s so life-affirming to have the child’s whole world honored. We wish everyone would understand this, but hearing you articulate it so beautifully is greatly appreciated. Thank you, Rene.
And last but not least, a writing tip for all the writers reading this?
RD: Write the truth. Not the truth you think others want to hear. The real truth, the closest you can come to it. And remember, if you want to write, you are a writer. Own it and feel proud of yourself.
JO: Now it’s my turn to say AMEN. Rene, thank you so much. This has been amazing. And to everyone reading this, remember, you can buy Sleeping Giants everywhere books are sold, including right here. Rene, it’s been an honor and a pleasure.
And for anyone who wants to try their hand at writing the truth, as Rene says, “not the truth you think others want to hear, but the real truth, the closest you can come to it,” here is a structured writing exercise designed to help you do exactly that.
Love,
Jeannine
Writing Exercise: Unspooling Our Way To The Truth
I want to talk about writing that contains truth, and how to achieve that, especially when the truth is hard. It’s a complicated topic, even though we hear about the importance of truth in our writing all the time. Just as with terms like sensory detail, or scene, or narrative arc, the term truth gets used—but for some of us, the idea of writing truth can feel easier said than done.
Many prominent writers and thinkers have spoken on the matter of truth. At various times in this newsletter, I have quoted Wendell Berry, the poet, essayist, and activist, who wrote, back in 2010, in a letter to an English teacher and her class:
By taking up the study of writing … you are assuming consciously … a responsibility for our language. What is that responsibility? I think it is to make words mean what they say. It is to keep our language capable of telling the truth. We live in a time when we are surrounded by language that is glib, thoughtless, pointless, or deliberately false. If you learn to pay critical attention to what you hear on radio or television or read in the newspapers, you will see what I mean.
And Ernest Hemingway famously said, “All you have to do is write one true sentence.” Meanwhile, fiction writer Joy Williams said it this way in a Marginalian interview:
The significant story possesses more awareness than the writer writing it. The significant story is always greater than the writer writing it. This is the absurdity, the disorienting truth, the question that is not even a question, this is the koan of writing.
Ah… the disorienting truth. So beautiful! But what is that, exactly? Certainly not factualism. Obviously not. Creative writing, even creative nonfiction writing, is not journalism (though certainly journalism can be richly creative, but that’s a topic for another day). Creative writing is art. So, what truly do we mean when we agree—some of us, anyway—that the job or art is to say something true?
I think we mean a few things, but perhaps mainly that our work must say something so precise, so new, so slanted, and so alive that it wakes readers up. Something so deeply and wildly articulated that it surprises readers in some significant way, turning up the volume (and this is true even of the quietest work!) on some inescapable, universally human reality.
Given that I believe this, it’s no accident that I placed that Wendell Berry quote within a discussion of the need for writers to defamiliarize our work, including the language we use, enough to “make it capable” of doing that most crucial job of telling the truth.
How then—in a nuts and bolts way—do we do this?
We must begin, I believe, by breaking out of our cages and writing against the grain of our typical habits. One way we can do so is to turn away from factualism, no matter our genre, and free ourselves from realism, even if we’re writing creative nonfiction. Because yes, something can be true but not literal. What is metaphor, after all? The reason I find abandoning realism so useful for getting at the truth is because it can open doors we didn’t realize were standing between us and the truth.
As Williams said, and it bears repeating:
The significant story possesses more awareness than the writer writing it. The significant story is always greater than the writer writing it.
Williams goes on to say:
Why does the writer write? The writer writes to serve — hopelessly he writes in the hope that he might serve — not himself and not others, but that great cold elemental grace which knows us.
That great cold elemental grace which knows us.
That is what I want!
But if abandoning realism is a way to get at truth in our writing, then … how do we do that? How do we “abandon realism?”
One surefire way to “abandon realism” in order to unspool a truer truth is to