Meet Renee Leonard Kennedy | Writer, Investor and Burgeoning Farmer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Renee Leonard Kennedy and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Renee, do you have a favorite quote or affirmation?
“The glory of light cannot exist without its shadows. Life is a whole, and good and ill must be accepted together. The journey has been enjoyable and well worth making–once” (Winston Churchill, Thoughts and Adventures). Truly, these words have and will take a lifetime to understand.
The quote itself reminds me that I’m standing in the middle of where I came from and where I’m going. Hard days mingle with good ones. Despair and joy are often bedfellows, but life must be examined in full. Churchill also reminds to seek the preciousness of this day–this only day ever–as the end of the journey is often not anticipated.

The quote is doubly meaningful, as my mother gave me this book one Christmas.

She rarely read, except for the obituaries over breakfast, and Daily Bread during lunch. She rarely wrote. Yet, she hand inscribed the inside cover. I have few samples of her handwriting left to me: a check never cashed, a birthday card, her name taped to the underside of a chair. Precious were her spartan words, made glorious by her pen.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Writing is so much more than words. It’s experiencing and observing life, yes, but more like delving knee deep into the Everglades where slimy creatures graze your leg, and your feet sink deep into silt, but you trudge forward anyway. I’ve written since I was in second-grade into my college days, but halted the words for twenty-six years after this, for both good reasons and bad. I’ve often begrudged those years as wasted–think how many book ideas past by?–but now, I recognize the other forms of writing that took place. I’m positive I have the longest single-spaced journal on a dead Mac computer in the history of humankind. I wrote many letters that have been gifted back to me from grandmothers and parents since they’ve passed. My Bible is filled with written prayers, my files with scraps of paper. All these acts add up to this thing called writing, not as defined in local or online bookstores, but as a creative attempt to drag a sentence up from the brackish swamp of thought onto paper.

I’m fascinated that in my sixth decade I’m attempting firsts: a first book release in October 2022, a first-time RV owner, a first-time ballroom dance groupie, a first-time farmer. The freedom to see the unlimited, despite a very real, a very approaching DOA date, delights my soul.

One word to sum up these firsts regarding my stories and my brand would be “Restoration.”

This word should be tattooed on my arm, as it is across the story of my life, from the second-grade poet, to the many Shoutout Miamis I celebrate, to the Winston Churchill motto to this very moment, overlooking my farm land while looking forward to Tango on Thursday.

Restoration means never giving up on dreams, even when they seem buried. Restoration means treading the hard roads, whether once in Cuba, or down a funeral aisle, and setting your heart to endeavor. We recognize and carry the weight, but we remember those before us who have done the same, and those after us who watch.

My hope in my wee, nonfiction gift book, After the Flowers Die: Encouragement for Walking Through Life After Loss, is that we see loss as “a painful passing, yes, but one day, a life story to be handed down to the next generation, which will touch the proceeding three.”

Even my relationship with my publisher is a glorious first. Victoria Duerstock started out as my life coach, long before the birth of End Game Press. She encouraged my writing to evolve from a blog to a dream to a book. As publisher, she spurs End Game to be more than a stable of writers, but a team of authors where each of our successes raise up all. Writing can be done in isolation or in the dear company of others. How rich the latter.

Renee Leonard Kennedy’s new book, After The Flowers Die, is out this Fall. Pre-order now at www.endgamepress.com/store/p/after-the-flowers-die

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
When I lived in Miami, as a fan of architectural, I would often take my family and friends across the many beautiful bridges and meander until we found the perfect, out-of-the way restaurant, the small kind, perhaps my favorite in North Miami Beach where the picadillo was perfect. Afterwards, we head to a neighborhood park surrounded by Ficus and bottlebrush trees. I’d bring out my last boomerang, because they’re cool. I have yet to have the Miami trees return one to me, and we’d throw this one far…with lots of hope. We’d pick up some espresso and a Cuban sandwich for later from a food truck, trek over to the Miracle Mile in Coral Gables, circling for parking one too many times, and spend the remaining hours to sunset in Books and Books. Buying, of course. Then, we’d go park in the driveway, and watch the stars shift, the planes land and fly to foreign places, our bodies warmed yet more by the hood of the car.
It has never been the sightseeing of Miami that I remember. It is the possibilities of finding community in unsuspecting places that strikes me to this day.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
A Shoutout Miami to the following amazing people: The Florida International University North Campus English Department of 1982-1985.
Jim Hall (James W.) for the sublime, (cliche adjective, I know, but true) writing courses that awoke me to the pairing of words and their sounds, and enriching sentences with duo meaning
Asher Milbauer, for his incredible courses on Russian and Jewish Literature. Listening to this professor read aloud was otherworldly.
Rick Schwarz, for that summer of film studies and baseball literature
Les Standiford, for enduring, and prodding the novel beyond the two-dimensional and awakening me to screenwriting
My two DIS professors, the one who delved into Ben Jonson with me, the other into Aristotle and his words on love

A Shoutout Miami to:
Mitch Kaplan and Books and Books, who hosted a poetry contest long ago in the 80s and allowed me to do my one and only poetry reading ever in this most grand of book stores. Many thanks to the founding of Miami Book Fair International and introducing us to a world of authors

A Shoutout Miami to:
Tina, my North Miami neighbor, who shared her electricity for two and a half weeks with me after Hurricane Andrews, 1992

A Shoutout Miami to:
Aimee Cabo, Sirius XM radio host, and her daughter, Michelle, who shares a fondness to talk to the world. Thanks, Aimee, for the time together on your show.

A BIG Shoutout Miami to:
All the first-generation Cubans I met while living in Miami in the 80s and 90s. Thanks for showing me perseverance in the face of trial, and a love for family surpassing waters that separate. Also, nothing grander can be had than Bistec de Palomilla, picadillo, yuca and plantains. Perfection.

Website: https://www.reneeleonardkennedy.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/renee.l.k

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ReneeLeonardKe1

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/reneeleonardkennedy

Image Credits
https://www.instagram.com/wcphotography