Thursday, April 10, 2025

Green Light: A Gatsby Cycle is OUT!

I'm thrilled to announce that my hybrid chapbook, written with Janet Dale, is out today!

Green Light: A Gatsby Cycle offers a striking reimagination of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, told as a collaborative chapbook of found poetry and flash fiction. Using only the first page of each chapter from the novel, Dale and Renner craft a fresh meditation on the classic story—one that explores a boy’s struggle to break free from the place that made him, questioning the very notion of the American Dream.

The authors create a seamless dialogue with Fitzgerald’s work, transforming familiar passages into something entirely new. Each flash fiction piece and poem reflects themes of ambition, yearning, and the pursuit of freedom, while offering a thoughtful exploration of the literary masterpiece.

You can buy a copy directly from me and get it delivered in a shiny green mailer along with a book cover postcard and sticker. 

In the meantime, add it as "Want to Read" on Goodreads and The StoryGraph, then share your thoughts when you've read it.

Tuesday, April 8, 2025

The Annotated Great Gatsby - 100th Anniversary Deluxe Edition

 

The Annotated Great Gatsby - 100th Anniversary Deluxe Edition

I couldn't resist this gorgeous book. It's the original story, commentary, and almost a textbook, all in one. Okay, textbook might not sound appealing, and I don't really mean it that way. But there's so much information to help put the story and the writing process in context.

There's so much in this book that I haven't even made it all the way through yet, but check out the details from Penguin Random House:
  • A new introduction by Amor Towles, bestselling author of Rules of Civility and A Gentleman in Moscow
  • A corrected text of Gatsby based on Fitzgerald’s composite manuscript, working galleys, and personal copies 
  • Restored American spellings and emendations made by Fitzgerald throughout the book’s life 
  • 13 annotated letters between Fitzgerald and Gatsby’s star editor Maxwell Perkins 
  • A detailed chronology of Fitzgerald’s life and career, plus extensive explanatory and textual notes 
Here's just a sample of the page layouts, with the original text there to read, but also sidebars about F. Scott himself or details about that time, things he mentioned in the book, etc.


I think this is a must-have for any Gatsby fan, or anyone who loves history, or anyone who loves reading classics and putting them in context. Above all, it's also a gorgeous book.