Ren Cedar Fuller is the author of Bigger: Essays, winner of the Autumn House Press Nonfiction Prize. She also won Under the Sun's Summer Writing Contest and her essays have appeared in HerStry, Hippocampus, New England Review, North American Review, and Under the Sun. Ren taught public school in California, Oregon, and Washington before founding a nonprofit early learning center near Seattle. She teaches parent education around Seattle and facilitates parent meetings at TransFamilies, an online support hub for families with gender-diverse children. She lives in Seattle with her husband, Jason.

"Ren Cedar Fuller's perceptive debut work, Bigger, offers nine linked autobiographical essays in which she seeks to see herself and family members more clearly by acknowledging disability, neurodivergence, and gender diversity. . . . This openhearted memoir models how to explore and integrate with one's family history." --Shelf Awareness, starred review

"Fuller embraces the differences she encounters in her own past, her parents' past, and her child's present and future, weaving them into valuable stories of love, connection, and empathy. In a time when people's differences seem to have brought us to an impasse, perhaps her book could teach us all a thing or two." --Hippocampus Magazine

"The pieces in Bigger accomplish what personal essays do at their best: they suggest a new way of looking at things. Whether the subject is an emotionally distant father, a transgender child, a rare disease, or a fondly remembered summer in youth, Ren Cedar Fuller's voice is wise, compassionate, self-aware, and searching. Bigger offers the deep pleasure of experiences thoughtfully considered, emotions examined, and ideas explored, yet still left to us to ponder. This collection is a gem."
--Clifford Thompson, author of What It Is: Race, Family, and One Thinking Black Man's Blues

"Reading the essays in Ren Cedar Fuller's Bigger made me feel as if I was sitting with a dear old friend and flipping through their family photo album for the first time. Each snapshot stands on its own, adding intricate detail to Ren as the child, sibling, spouse, and parent. I felt as if I was looking through her eyes, sharing the experiences in real time. Cedar Fuller masterfully weaves in people, places, time, senses, and heart in a way that leaves me saying, 'May I have some more, please?'"
--Aidan Key, author of Trans Children in Today's Schools

"Bigger is a book absolutely of this moment in US culture. As the mother of a trans child, the daughter of a man whose undiagnosed affect pointed to being on the autism scale, and the wife of a man with the emotional courage to face such challenges, Ren Cedar Fuller has written a collection that charts a course for others to follow--or perhaps lead. With essays that range from traditional to experimental, Bigger embodies opening ourselves to new possibilities. In the end, this is a book about joy in all its possible manifestations."
--Sue William Silverman, author of Acetylene Torch Songs: Writing True Stories to Ignite the Soul

Publisher: Autumn House Press

Pub date: 2025-10-07

Length: 162 pages