René Garcia, Jr. didn’t always want to be a writer. In fact, he started out as an artist. Influenced by his father, René Sr., René Jr. took to pencil sketching. It’s not that his father was an amazing artist or anything, but René always admired a quick sketch his father had drawn one afternoon of a bearded man with sunglasses. René was a child, so it amazed him that a person could recreate such lifelike reality on paper. In retrospect, the drawing was actually kind of cartoony and René later came to find out that that was really the only thing his father could draw. By then, it was too late. By age 12 René was able to perfectly replicate anything he saw onto paper with pencil. He would have pursued art throughout college and then professionally had it not been for the lack of support from his parents. In truth, they were downright disappointed when René made the announcement. Luckily, René enjoyed telling stories.

Writing, for René, is just like pencil sketching in that he has an exact control over what the reader takes from his words. He’ll go so far as to plainly clarify what he means, sacrificing flowery metaphors and similes to ensure he’s understood. This gives his work a strong “meta” edge. René’s fiction and personal non-fiction are colored heavily in morose tones, which can be off putting to the optimistic. On the other hand, readers of cynical work regard René’s words as fresh and realistic.

René Garcia, Jr. graduated from University of California, Riverside, earning a degree in Creative Writing with an emphasis on non-fiction. If one were to ask René why he chose to focus on non-fiction he’d likely answer that it was due to laziness. He has a firm grasp on reality and it makes it easy to write. Fiction becomes time consuming when entire worlds and lives have to be constructed before or during the writing process. This observation is clear in René’s fiction work, which is often about very specific moments and does very little to illustrate the world beyond.

After graduating, René sought work in the writing industry, but found it difficult to find employment. As it turned out, everyone wanted experience. So René did his time in Day Job Purgatory while he freelanced for regional entertainment magazines in order to build his portfolio. Doing so, he quickly learned that freelancing often times literally lived up to its name. Ramen noodles sustained him through many dark nights.

René finally found gainful employment as a copywriter and content writer for a few Search Engine Optimization firms. Since then, he has also become the copy editor for bello Magazine. René currently lives in Southern California and is happily employed as the copywriter for Cal Spas.

Please take the time to read René’s work and leave a comment.