01 - 03 June 2012
Lori Foster's Reader & Author Get Together
West Chester, OH

None at the moment

Renee is a military brat turned military wife who is currently stationed in Hawaii with her husband and two cats.

Whether writing as D. Renee Bagby or Zenobia Renquist, she is a world-builder. She loves inventing new cultures and shaping their histories and laws because it beats researching the existing ones.

Her stories span the fantasy gamut but she dabbles in sci-fi and contemporary from time to time. While her main characters tend to be of different races, she doesn't let skin color rule or limit her stories. For her, it's all about how much she can torture her characters so they earn their happily-ever-after ending.

The rules are all new and pre-conceived notions will only slow you down, so when reading Renee's stories, she asks only one thing -- Leave Your Reality Behind.

Whether as D. Reneé Bagby or Zenobia Renquist, Reneé lives in her imagination. When not traveling through her fantasy worlds, she can be found in Hawaii living with her husband and two cats.

She is an Air Force brat turned Air Force wife, which means she’s accustomed to travel and does it whenever possible (so long as she doesn’t have to fly). Her favorite pastime is torturing her characters on their way to happily-ever-after for the enjoyment of her readers.

On the few occasions her muse flees the scene of the crime, Reneé likes to read (comics, manga, and romance), go to the movies, play a few levels of whichever puzzle game has hijacked her interest or experiment with a new chain maille weave.

'Home is where my stuff is'. That's Reneé's motto... one of many.

An Air Force brat born and raised, Reneé has traveled all of her life. She was born in the Netherlands and raised in Japan, Texas, Florida, and finally Virginia.

Her travels didn't stop once high school ended. She attended college in North Carolina at Elon University, graduating with a B.A. in International Studies and a minor in Asian Studies, Japanese concentration. And after graduation, she returned to Texas to start her life with her husband and rejoin the ranks of Air Force living as a military spouse. From Texas, it was off to California for four years where she finished her first manuscript.

It wasn't until she, her husband, and their two cats moved to Maryland that she submitted said manuscript to Samhain Publishing, Ltd. and received a contract. She is currently living in Hawaii.

Given her upbringing and the military tendency of traveling, Reneé knows a lot about adapting to new locales and being 'the new kid'. It's no wonder the majority of her stories tend to be 'fish out of water' stories.

Unlike many authors who said they had a love of reading and writing since a very young age, Reneé used to hate reading and writing wasn't even a thought. If it wasn't on TV then it didn't interest her.

All that changed when her elementary school held a reading contest. A gold medal was waiting for all the students who read a certain number of books and Renee was determined to be one of them. She received her gold medal and a love of reading. From YA Romance to Mainstream Romance, Reneé discovered an addiction to the happily-ever-after endings the romantic genres offered.

She didn't start writing until high school. Back then, her stories were a way to pass the time in class so the teachers thought she was taking notes. It wasn't until another contest, a literary contest, surfaced that she considered writing a story with a definite beginning, middle, and end.

While she didn't finish the story in time for the competition and thus didn't get a chance to submit it for consideration, her English teacher at the time—her very first beta reader—gave her the encouragement needed to keep at it. It took a few years and many, many rough drafts but Adrienne was eventually born. And, as cliché as it sounds, that was the beginning of the end.

Reneé loves reading (romances and manga) when she has the time but finds she loves writing even more. Her imagination entertains her far more than anything she could find on television, though it is a lovely distraction at times. And, the writing community has introduced her to good friends who are just as crazy and out-there as she is.