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RS Deeren

@rsdeeren.bsky.social
194 followers 123 following 126 posts

Cat Stepdad Michigander in the South Michigan Notable Book Author ENOUGH TO LOSE from Wayne State University Press Prof. & Coordinator of Creative Writing at Austin Peay State University

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Reposted by RS Deeren
Maria Nazos @marianazos.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
“To live & to write is to desire & suffer, but that doesn’t mean we should entrap ourselves in the starving artist persona...” My interview with @chicagorevbooks.bsky.social just dropped. Thank you, @rsdeeren.bsky.social! Read it: chireviewofbooks.com/2026/08/12/o.... #Poetry #PULSE
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
The best time! Way to go, Mike! So glad you brought us all together.
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
Such a great book and such a great conversation!
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
Stoked to be in Chicago next month for this book launch!
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
Mitchell has a literary fire going in Southeast Michigan!
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Reposted by RS Deeren
Chicago Review of Books @chicagorevbooks.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
"What’s important to me isn’t to capture an experience so much as the emotional truth of an experience." @rsdeeren.bsky.social's interview with Valencia Robin on her new book “Lost Cities: Poems” (Persea Books) is out now. chireviewofbooks.com/2025/09/12/t...
chireviewofbooks.com
"The Emotional Truth of an Experience:" An Interview with Valencia Robin - Chicago Review of Books
A conversation with Valencia Robin on her new poetry collection, "Lost Cities"
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
I had the joy of speaking with Valencia Robin on her newest poetry collection, LOST CITIES, for @chicagorevbooks.bsky.social Check out the brilliant insight below. Thanks to Gabriel Fried for putting us in contact.
chireviewofbooks.com
"The Emotional Truth of an Experience:" An Interview with Valencia Robin - Chicago Review of Books
A conversation with Valencia Robin on her new poetry collection, "Lost Cities"
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
Such an honor to be from a state that has a huge love for its own authors and books.
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
Preorders are live for this major anthology edited by Michael Welch. I am always stoked for work that shows honest aspects of the Midwest, especially the Great Lakes Region. Honored to be in these pages.
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 13/06/2025
The team at Wayne State UP have told me that online sales of ENOUGH TO LOSE are still climbing. I don't know what is contributing to this boom 18 months after the book came out but I'm extremely grateful! My neighbor even told me she got a copy!
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
Real honored to sit down with Mitch at KicksART Farmington to discuss class, writing fiction, rural spaces, and of course THE THUMB. Coming this August!
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
And it's a brilliant piece!
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 29/03/2025
I'll be discussing thr working-class, my book, and answering your questions live! See you there.
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
Wreckage and the Hollywood sign for the Poetry in Woods #AWP25 hike.
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
Started of #AWP25 right with eight street tacos and poetry talk with a fellow Thumbody.
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
They got totes! #APW
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
This may be my first #AWP with bluesky. I'm hoping to get fives of reactions to my silly posts. Excited for a handful of working-class panels!
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
I had another chance to speak with a wonderful poet. Gabriel Fried's recent collection is stunning, halting, and fantastic!
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
Oh yeah, forgot: this is my first ever CNF pub!
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
Thrilling Sunday news! I wrote a creative nonfiction piece that started as a memory of playing in the woods that quickly turned into a 150-year history of exploitation of stolen land in Michigan's Thumb. Excited for this essay to be at home in this anthology. Out next year from Belt Publishing!
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John Counts @johncounts138.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
I had the chance to talk to @rsdeeren.bsky.social about the journalism-fiction intersection, Michigan lit and other cool stuff.
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
John Counts had brilliant things to say about rural life, work, and writing. It was amazing getting to speak with him!
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 05/01/2025
"Our inability to reconcile our impact on others is mirrored by our inability to reconcile our impact on each other." Spent the new year finalizing an essay that blended my ties to Michigan's ash trees, the Emerald Ash Borer, and my neighbor's AR-15.
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 23/12/2024
An honor of a review for the book! "Enough to Lose is a masterclass in intergenerational midwestern gothic showcasing geographic space and time’s pull—on hopes, dreams, grief and loss."
thenorthmeridianreview.org
Review: “Enough to Lose,” RS Deeren.  — North Meridian Press
RS Deeren.  Enough to Lose . Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 2023. In the tradition of Willa Cather, Theodore Dreiser, Jim Harrison, and Bonnie Jo Campbell, RS Deeren deftly weaves shor...
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Reposted by RS Deeren
RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Started a list of working-class and rural authors, for your ease of follow. Feel free to share and add to the list. bsky.app/profile/did:...
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
I'll never write a character better than the real-life bunny lady on IT'S FLORIDA, MAN.
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
Today's guest editor.
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
Today's guest editor
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Reposted by RS Deeren
Brevity / Dinty W. Moore @dintywmoore.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
"Stories are holy and nutritious and crucial. Stories change lives; stories save lives.... They crack open hearts, they open minds." ~ Brian Doyle
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
First page of Hanif Abdurraqib's THERE'S ALWAYS THIS YEAR. Amazing.
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Reposted by RS Deeren
Brevity / Dinty W. Moore @dintywmoore.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
"There's no such thing as a born writer. It's a skill you've got to learn, just like learning how to be a bricklayer or a carpenter." ~ Larry Brown
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Started a list of working-class and rural authors, for your ease of follow. Feel free to share and add to the list. bsky.app/profile/did:...
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
In the generative poetry workshop, students are scared to share the work they just wrote. So, I write bad, top-of-my-head poetry and have a laugh. An ice-breaker. A week later, the students are writing with confidence!
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
A stunner from @kristintenor.bsky.social
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 16/11/2024
A weekend of writing AND videogames? Oh my god it's good to not be a grad student anymore.
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
Today's students devoured this poem by Kenzie Allen!
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 22/09/2024
Great Lakes Region Writers: check out this CfP for a new Belt Publishing anthology edited by @chicagorevbooks.bsky.social EiC @mbwwelch.bsky.social
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 25/03/2024
Got a bad review!
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 11/02/2024
Brilliant time at #AWP24. Got to reunite with so many authors and talk working-class storytelling. Someone told me they didn't feel like they belonged until hearing my presentation. Hot dang. Also helped that I went backing a Michigan Notable Book with ENOUGH TO LOSE.
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 09/02/2024
After my panel on class and storytelling at 1:45, I'll be signing copies of ENOUGH TO LOSE at the Wayne State UP Table at 3pm. Table 1219. There's gonna be vinyl stickers!
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 08/02/2024
The #AWP fee is $250, $90 if you present. That's an expensive toteba---oh, wait.
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 20/01/2024
Honored to get the shield for the MICHIGAN NOTABLE BOOK award for ENOUGH TO LOSE from the Library of Michigan.
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 18/01/2024
Lionel Shriver's newest book promises to show just how stupid her Libertarian takes are by *checks notes* creating a fantasy world where "stupid" is the worst slur. She's the literary equivalent of the whitest person you know saying it's racist to call a racist a racist.
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 10/01/2024
I interviewed @bonniejo.bsky.social for her new book, THE WATERS, for @chicagorevbooks.bsky.social. Check it out!
chireviewofbooks.com
“A Path Through the Wilderness of Gender”: Bonnie Jo Campbell on Her Newest Novel, “The Waters...
An interview with Bonnie Jo Campbell about her new novel, “The Waters.”
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 08/01/2024
A thoughtful review of my debut: "... for those born in the region, the Thumbbody life chooses them — “Enough to Lose” reveals that the simple life is not so simple after all, and unravels the complexities of its characters’ lives with care and realism."
midstory.org
Telling the Working-class Stories of Rural Michigan: A Review of “Enough to Lose” - Midstory
When asked about his background, RS Deeren’s first instinct is to describe the setting of his upbringing: rural isolation and working-class struggle. This view of identity — inseparably forged by ...
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 07/01/2024
Real honored to have ENOUGH TO LOSE named a 2024 Michigan Notable Book alongside some brilliant people such as @curtischin.bsky.social, Ann Patchett, Ghassan Zeineddine, and Jack White!
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 02/01/2024
A stunning review of ENOUGH TO LOSE by Jim Daniels: "Deeren’s lyricism and imagery are first-rate, often counterpointing brutality or offering insight into it.The vividness of the sensory detail here is impressive—I can smell these places, and their whiffs of despair..."
journals.uwyo.edu
View of Deeren, R.S. (2023) Enough to Lose. Wayne State University Press
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 01/01/2024
Hey everyone, it's my birthday year.
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 21/12/2023
Real honored to see ENOUGH TO LOSE on another "favorites of 2023" list. Humbled to be mentioned in such good company as @kellylink.bsky.social, Vauhini Vara, Jamel Brinkley, and Yiyun Li.
chireviewofbooks.com
Our Favorite Short Story Collections of 2023
Many articles have been written about our culture’s shrinking attention spans, largely blaming the rise of smartphones for our dwindling attentiveness. So one might reason the short story should be�...
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RS Deeren @rsdeeren.bsky.social · 17/12/2023
"The way Deeren opens up these lives speaks to the gravity of our own." A lovely review of my debut!
wolfsonpress.mybigcommerce.com
Review Issue 3
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