Writing

Zen Ren is a writer published in New England Review, Electric Lit, swamp pink, Nimrod, Boulevard, Curbed, and others. In prose, they received a PEN America Emerging Voices Fellowship for their novel-in-progress, Nimrod’s New Writer Award, and was a finalist for a Glimmer Train’s contest. In poetry, they have won Sine Theta’s contest, and was a finalist for New Letters’ Patricia Cleary Award, Nimrod’s New Writer Award, Gigantic Sequins’ contest, and Epiphany Zine’s Fresh Voices Fellowship. They have received a Pushcart nomination.

Zen Ren, writer, sits in a park wearing a green shirt and black-and-white pants with a gray fabric backdrop to the left.

Current work

Zen is working on their first novel (working title EXHIBITION), which is literary speculative fiction about two android friends and their rivalry from finishing school, fame, and illness. It explores the destructive and creative power of memory and how we construct our identities through the stories we narrate to each other. An excerpt of EXHIBITION won a PEN America 2023 Emerging Voices Fellowship for fiction.

FICTION AND ESSAYS

Other opportunities and awards

  • PEN America Emerging Voices Fellowship - EXHIBITION novel excerpt

  • Finalist for One Story’s Adina-Talve Goodman Fellowship - EXHIBITION novel excerpt

  • Longlist for First Pages Prize - EXHIBITION novel excerpt

  • Porches’ Nancy Zafris Fellowship - “Content Violation”

  • Finalist for Glimmer Train’s Contest - “Book of our Dirt”

  • Language, Please (Google News Initiative x Vox Media) - internal board member, helped review guidelines for LGBTQ issues (explore here)

Workshops and residencies

  • Kenyon Review winter 2023

  • Anaphora Arts residency 2023

Publications

POETRY

Other opportunities and awards

  • Finalist for Epiphany Magazine Fresh Voices Fellowship, “Ampersand” and other poems

  • Finalist for New Letters’ Patricia Cleary Award, “Ampersand” and other poems

Workshops and residencies

  • Kenyon Review summer 2024

  • Lambda Literary summer 2024

Publications