echthroi.org

About

Renay is a writer, community organizer, and podcaster who grew up in rural Arkansas as part of communities rooted in oral storytelling. She launched her writing career before she turned ten with Care Bears and Mario Brothers fanfiction and followed that up with an emphasis in personal essays in the form of diaries, letters to penpals, and fictionalized stories about her and her friends on adventures. Once she acquired internet access, she launched herself into the online fandom for Sailor Moon and never looked back, collecting fandoms and hopping from personal websites to Livejournal to Archive of Our Own. She’s written a couple million words of fanfic in fandoms such as Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy X-2, Stargate Atlantis, Inception (2010), and Teen Wolf.

As a community organizer, she attended Girls State, Wellstone Action (now re:power), and worked as Communications Director for Chintan Desai for Congress. She served as the secretary for the Democratic Party of Craighead County from January 2019 to January 2021, and now serves on the Communications team where she manages Twitter, the county website, and TikTok. She was elected to serve as a representative of the county committee to the state party in the summer of 2018, and has held a seat on the Democratic Party of Arkansas State Committee since that time.

Her nonfiction work in fandom has been recognized by her peers via four Hugo Award nominations for Best Fanzine for her work on her fandom and culture blog, Lady Business, which includes two wins. Additional, she’s received three Hugo Award nominations for Best Fancast for her work on Fangirl Happy Hour, a pop culture and media podcast.

Renay graduated from Arkansas State University in 2011 with a degree in English, a minor in History, and has spun her experience in her program into a career critiquing elected officials, dragging fascists in the Opinion section of the local paper, and teaching others how to tell their own stories and advocate for themselves and their communities successfully. She currently lives in Arkansas, where she spends time chilling with her partner, writing about local politics, and shouting about the lives of fictional characters. You can find her online at @Renay on Twitter.