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Rena's first chapter of her completed literary memoir, The Plunge: An Unexpected Adventure in Love, was long listed for the CBC 2017 Nonfiction Prize. That manuscript is now on hold as is her other memoir called Infallible: Surviving San Francisco's Darkest Days. She is currently writing new pieces for reading in public (see News) and working on a less personal nonfiction manuscript called Blastphemy: Stories of Sacred Materiality, a project about embodied consciousness.

 

Her earlier work was published in the Cobalt Review, The Bookends Review and in the inaugural "red issue" edition of Chroma Magazine. Two of her pieces, "Nymph Skin" and "No Roses in Roseville" have been shortlisted in The Writer's Union of Canada 21st Annual Short Prose Competition ad Malahat Review Open Season Awards. In 2019-2022, Tricycle Magazine published three of her articles and she plans to write more for them in the future. 

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Though born and raised in the US, Rena makes her home on Galiano Island, a one-hour ferry ride from Vancouver, BC. She's a 2013 graduate of Simon Fraser University’s The Writer’s Studio and in the ensuing years, has studied the world of writing and publishing, while developing her writing voice. She also co-hosted a popular reading series in Vancouver prior to moving to Galiano in 2020.

 

Her first career of thirty years began after receiving her education in interior design from California College of the Arts in Oakland, California. Rena spent the first fifteen years of her career in San Francisco, before also working professionally in Seattle, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Vancouver and Los Angeles. She left her design career in 2009 to pursue a second career as a writer. .

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In March of 2017, NAMW (National Association of Memoir Writers) featured her as member of the month.