Author Interview: Renee Emerson
Mid/South Anthology contributor + Belle Point Chap author
To celebrate the anniversary of Renee Emerson’s chapbook, The Commonplace Misfortunes of Everyday Plants, this week, we’re digging out this interview from back when we launched our first Mid/South Anthology (which also includes some of Renee’s poetry) in 2022. Renee’s chapbook is a powerful meditation on parenting, child loss, and clinging to faith while giving reverence to grief.
Name: Renee Emerson
Current Location: St. Charles, MO
Links: Website | Twitter @thisquiethour | Substack:
&Renee Emerson is the author of the poetry collections Keeping Me Still (Winter Goose Publishing 2014), Threshing Floor (Jacar Press 2016), and Church Ladies (Fernwood Press 2023). She is also the author of the chapbook The Commonplace Misfortunes of Everyday Plants (Belle Point Press 2023), and the middle grade novel Why Silas Miller Must Learn to Ride a Bike (Wintergoose Publishing 2022). She lives in the Midwest with her husband and children.
1. Is there anything else you’d like us to know about your work that appears in the anthology?
My poems in this anthology are about my daughter Kit, who passed away in 2019. She was born with DiGeorge Syndrome and a severe congenital heart defect; this meant that the majority of the six months she was alive was spent in the CICU with a breathing tube. I was there every day, holding her when I could, sleeping beside her on those chairs that fold out into beds, with all the machines keeping her alive. “Work of Breathing” is a medical term for the energy used to inhale and exhale. She passed away from a stroke after her open-heart surgery.
2. How would you describe your work overall? Do you have other publications you’d like us to highlight?
The focus of my work changed after my daughter died. My previous books are more historically focused—Threshing Floor (Jacar Press) is a retelling of the story of Ruth from the Bible, and Church Ladies (Fernwood Press) is a collection of persona poems from the perspective of women from church history. My current work is quite a bit more personal.
3. How does the Mid-South and/or larger Southern region influence your perspective (personally and/or in your writing)?
Growing up in the “Christ-haunted South” (O’Connor) affected my perspective on faith, which my writing consistently wrestled with and confronts. My southern family taught me to make a good story out of whatever happens to you.
4. What do you wish more people knew about this area?
The best part about the Mid-South is the people.
Powerful stuff