René E. Wilde is this CSUSM senior’s pseudonym, inspired by Irish writer Oscar Wilde. After reading “A Picture of Dorian Gray,” which they deemed the “messiest love triangle ever,” they had to pay homage.
René E. Wilde explores queer loneliness and apocalyptic dread in their fiction. These themes are particularly present in “Goat Boy,” “Saint Vinny,” and “The Green Light at the End of Time,” the titles of two unpublished short stories and a full-length novel yet to hit the shelves.
“Goat Boy” is a love letter to vampires in small towns. Wilde worked on “Goat Boy” in a creative writing workshop at CSUSM. It began with two dense pages of backstory and ”blood-sucking” before the story spilled out of their mind.
“Saint Vinny” concerns a terminally ill man, who must, according to Wilde, “go to extreme lengths to return something they borrowed”. Wilde says it was all inspired by a writing prompt. In this story, the main character—Vinny, returns a kidney transplant through violent means after learning his cancer will kill him. Wilde chose to tell this story through short ‘chapters,’ some of which are only a paragraph long–an experimental piece also workshopped in a CSUSM creative writing class.
“The Green Light at the End of Time” is the first book of a three-part series Wilde is planning. Wilde describes it simply: “Two teenagers stuck in a time travel loop”. It’s dreamy and intimate, a title desperately needed in the Young Adult genre. Wilde has contemplated sending it to publishers. From how Wilde described the story, it only seems inevitable that “The Green Light at the End of Time” will become much grander than they initially imagined.
What does Wilde value?
As indicated by their pseudonym, other writers are Wilde’s biggest motivators. “Bouncing ideas off another person,” they say, or using other writer friends for inspiration drives their process. They continuously mention one specific writer friend, who goes unnamed, and it’s plain to see how important other people are to Wilde’s storytelling.
Wilde tends to get lost in the act of storytelling. They explained a half dozen movie plots, most of them before the turn of the century, all with shining eyes. It’s clear as day how wide Wilde’s toolbox of inspiration is. They picked out gems from their mind with ease. From a 1950 movie about a man and a giant invisible rabbit— “Harvey,” to the 2024 body horror box office hit—“The Substance,” Wilde finds gold in everything and anything ‘weird’.
Most of all, Wilde likes fiction that shakes you up—they like to shock their reader. So, it’s no surprise when Wilde exclaims, “We’re all afraid the world’s going to end.”
They cite global warming, eminent/existing war, and the pandemic as major stressors all generations are struggling with. Wilde sees apocalyptic fiction as the reflection of our world. They even described one of their own apocalyptic stories where a boy is forced by his parents to lose his memories and spends the last months of his life trying to remember them.
Wilde believes stories are a way to process the world. “We’re all trying to find comfort in the end,” Wilde explains. Whether or not you believe in the end times, Wilde’s work will surely bring up strong emotions and challenge your ideas of what fiction can do.
Look out for René E. Wilde’s work in the 318 Journal, where they’ve already published gems like “Cycle” and “A Failed Frankenstein”.
(This article is part of an ongoing series about student writers at CSUSM, created to center their unique artistry as storytellers. Any form of storytelling is key to community and the Chronicle’s Writer of the Month opens student stories to all CSUSM students and staff, not just those studying literature and writing.)