Exploring Fiction and Faith: An Interview with Beck Daniel Wren

Martin Kelley of Friends Journal talks with Beck Daniel Wren, a writer and member of University Friends Meeting in Seattle, about Wren’s short story “Starlings” and the ways fiction can reveal truths readers and characters may fear. They discuss Quaker influence, trusting readers, Wren’s experience as a transgender man, and the story’s unresolved mystery. Read “Starlings” at https://www.friendsjournal.org/starlings/

Links

• FJ November 2026 Fiction issue
• Beck Daniel Wren’s website
• An introduction to Quaker business meeting
• “The Outline of a Doorway,” by Wren, published as part of Roxane Gay’s Emerging Writer series:
• “In but Not of This World,” by Annalee Flower Horne and Hilary B. Bisenieks, the guest editors of FJ’s first fiction issue:

Bio

Beck Daniel Wren is queer, trans, and a lover of the serial comma. He is passionate about the power of writing to unlock new ways of living. Beck is a member of University Friends Meeting in Seattle, Wash.

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Transcript

Martin Kelley (00:00)
I’m Martin Kelly of Friends Journal, and this is a Quaker Talk interview that we do about articles in the magazine. November 2026 is about fiction. One of the things about fiction that I find is that it can show us things about our faith that we wouldn’t otherwise necessarily be able to see. It can get us into our faith in a different way than regular prose can. And that’s the topic of this article today that we’re going to be talking about.

It’s about seeing things, but also seeing things that maybe you’re afraid to see. So I’m here with Beck Daniel Wren of University Friends Meeting in Seattle, Washington. Welcome.

Beck Wren (00:37)
Thank you. It’s so great to be here.

Martin Kelley (00:39)
Now, I don’t want to give any spoilers to anyone about what’s in the this story, but it’s a story called Starlings, and it’s a protagonist who sees things that maybe they’re afraid to actually acknowledge that they see. So tell me a little bit, how how does a story like this come together? And did you have a a purpose in this or was it just a tale that you were weaving? How how do you think about your your fiction writing?

Beck Wren (01:04)
Yeah. for me this story definitely started from a place of I mean I’d have to say anger. I I’m really upset about the situation around immigration in our country right now in the US. And I fiction is always where I turn for an outlet. but as so often happens, as a character emerged, as I started to settle into the process of writing, it became a much more complicated story.

I f that that seems to always happen when

Martin Kelley (01:32)
Yeah.

Beck Wren (01:32)
when character emerges in writing, I feel. so

Yeah, once I once I found the character of Carol and started to follow her and explore her perspective, I felt like the the story changed a little bit. it became a little bit more about y the universal experience.

Martin Kelley (01:51)
Uh-huh.

Beck Wren (01:51)
I think the idea of the idea that we’re all afraid of something. And often that’s ourselves. What we could be

what we have been, the connections we might have with others is something that I find really really interesting to explore.

Martin Kelley (02:07)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it was very universal. I was rereading this again, and of course as an editor, I’ve read your story three, four times easily. but this morning rereading it, just how many topical issues you get in there, you know, housing insecurity and just the so many bad jobs that are out there, crappy jobs that people have. you talk about prisons, you talk about inefficient governments, immigration is definitely one. You talk about

colors in a very interesting way. and yet I had sort of forgotten that you had all that because there is that character to sort of guide us through and it just sort of feels like we’re we’re hearing her story and not just you know bull point of of topics. And that’s that’s part of the writing craft that you were able to do that. were there other topics that you were trying to, you know, like I can’t go that far or I have to start trimming down or were you able to get all the the different

Issues that you wanted to address in there.

Beck Wren (03:02)
Well, two thousand words is a very tight word count, I will admit. I understand

Martin Kelley (03:05)
It is. Yeah.

Beck Wren (03:06)
the limitations of magazine publishing. but two thousand is a challenge. I’m definitely an overwriter. When I when I start working on a piece, it’s always a novel in my head. and I find that short fiction functions better when it all resonates on a single frequency. so as I start writing and make that connection with character, things start to drop away.

Martin Kelley (03:28)
Mm-hmm.

Beck Wren (03:28)
I think particularly in writing short fiction, it’s a process of learning to trust the reader and trust what they’re bringing to the story. And that’s actually one place where I think my fiction writing really intersects with my experience as a Quaker. I’m fairly new to friends. I’ve only been attending meeting for about ten years, which in some of these with man i it’s a while, but

Martin Kelley (03:48)
That’s quite a while though. It’s you did just show up last week, right?

Beck Wren (03:55)
But in some meetings where, you know, many people have been there for half a century, I do sometimes still feel like a newcomer. but the that experience of showing up to business meeting and trusting that we’re all coming to this place and that whatever is meant to be shared here will come through us as a group exercise, I think has kind of reshaped how I see fiction, particularly short fiction.

because you can’t get it all like me as the writer, I can’t put it all on the page. so

Figuring out that way to trust the reader and allow that they’re bringing their own experience, I can allude to things, I can open doors, I can ask questions, and I don’t have to provide all the answers is something that’s been really transformative for me as a writer.

Martin Kelley (04:38)
Well well that I I find that fascinating ’cause one of the questions I always ask in in this, especially with the fiction issue, is is there a Quaker fiction? Is there anything that makes things Quaker? And it’s kind of an impossible question because you don’t want anything that’s like too just beating you on a head about Quakers. but it is something we have to think about. You did choose to submit this to a Quaker magazine. We in you know, we get all these manuscripts in coming in, these stories like

which ones are Quaker that we wanna put out here in this magazine. So, you know, we do have to think about that. but you’re saying that a Quaker meeting for business and that whole process has actually changed. A any other sort of Quaker bits that have shaped you as a as a writer?

Beck Wren (05:22)
I’ve noticed that in a lot of my stories the the theme of light reoccurs. and that really only did start after I started expending time in meeting exploring that. It it’s often as it is in Starlings, very abstracted, often very literalized. that’s not

Martin Kelley (05:38)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. There’s a lot

of visual elements in this story. Yeah.

Beck Wren (05:43)
Yeah, yeah. and that that seems to happen a lot in my writing.

I it’s so hard to know why we do what we do, any in anything. but it’s a good question, like what makes what makes any story Quaker? there aren’t any Quaker characters in this story, but I think that that willingness to question, the willingness to open doors and see what’s on the other side and accept it in a way.

the desire to connect with characters who do things or end up in places that we might not agree with but we’re willing to still see them and honor their humanity is something that I think is hopefully not exclusively Quaker, but I hope it is also Quaker.

Martin Kelley (06:24)
as part of the Quaker experience. Yeah, I I sort of felt this kind of search for truth that Carol was on. and maybe

Beck Wren (06:30)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Martin Kelley (06:31)
search for truth and also being afraid of the truth and trying to figure out what she is and isn’t seeing. not to spoil again, but I found that just sort of fascinating and Quakers were often called the children of the truth at the in the beginning. and that kind of constant searching for what what is real felt like an element of the story.

me but also just fascinating that she also recoils from that. And I think that’s a natural human experience.

Beck Wren (06:59)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. For me, I think my experience as a transgender man has also played into that sense of sometimes it’s scary to know yourself.

Martin Kelley (07:10)
Yeah. I would imagine, yeah.

Beck Wren (07:12)
yeah, I actually have that tattooed on my arm. I don’t know if that’ll come out on the screen. It’s probably backwards. know thyself in Greek. yeah.

Martin Kelley (07:18)
Okay. Know thyself. that’s great.

Beck Wren (07:23)
Facing me, ’cause I think it’s good life advice.

Martin Kelley (07:25)
Mm-hmm.

Beck Wren (07:27)
but it

Martin Kelley (07:27)
And do you think like Carol I mean, did you have a moment where you’re like, I don’t want this life or something? Like is this kind of a of wrestling? And it’s I mean, I think we all have things that we learn about ourselves and, you know, want to follow or don’t want to follow. did that come in as part of Carol’s experience, do you think?

Beck Wren (07:46)
I think it does, yes. and I also don’t see this this snapshot, this moment we see in the story as the end of Carol’s journey. I I think her if her experience continues beyond it. but I know in my own experience, with my gender transition and other aspects in life, there is that moment when you when I want to reject something. when I want to say this truth that I’ve learned about myself, I don’t want it.

Put it back in the box, walk away,

Martin Kelley (08:13)
Yeah.

Beck Wren (08:14)
be the person I thought I was. And it’s

Martin Kelley (08:16)
Right. Yeah.

Beck Wren (08:17)
it’s not easy to to change who you let yourself be.

Martin Kelley (08:21)
Mm-hmm.

Beck Wren (08:22)
So maybe that’s where my my sympathy, my compassion for Carol comes from. It’s not, it’s not often the first time we get things right.

Martin Kelley (08:30)
Right, do do you think we’ll we’ll see Carol again? do you have like an idea for where she’s going and you know, could this evolve into a a novel? you know, her her story? do do you have it all mapped out?

Beck Wren (08:41)
I don’t think I do. In this case, I think I really like the mystery. I think

Martin Kelley (08:45)
Mm-hmm.

Beck Wren (08:47)
walking too through too many of those open doors in a story like this would risk making it too literal. And part of the what makes the story work, I think, is the unexplained nature of Carol’s experience. How this shift in light

how she is experiencing it. And I think if we got more comfortable with that, it wouldn’t carry the same weight.

If that makes sense.

Martin Kelley (09:11)
Yeah, yeah, I I could see that. yeah, I just wondered like if you know, you said that the two thousand words were were too little. So I’m kind of curious what you would do if you had eighty thousand words or something to to tell this story. but we might just have to wait for that or maybe you’re gonna be telling another story. Do you do you mostly write short stories or what what kind of writing have you done other than this for French Journal?

Beck Wren (09:33)
Little bit of

Yeah, I do a little bit of everything. I I feel like the the idea as it comes to me dictates the form. So I’ve written novels, although I haven’t had any novels published yet. short stories, personal essay, poetry. I just I kind of try to follow the idea and see see where it takes me. See what unfolds.

Martin Kelley (09:55)
Yeah, that’s great. I I do want to put out you got some great recognition recently we saw Roxanne Gay, the writer has featured you and it’s what what is the it called? the the award here or the the honor?

Beck Wren (10:08)
E

yeah, it’s the Emerging Writer series, as part of

Martin Kelley (10:12)
Merging writers.

Beck Wren (10:13)
her substack newsletter The Audacity, which

Martin Kelley (10:18)
Great.

Beck Wren (10:19)
was a wonderful experience from start to finish. yeah, it was really special.

Martin Kelley (10:24)
Yeah,

congratulations. That’s great. and is is it opening doors? Is are any of these things opening doors or you know, getting you more attention?

Beck Wren (10:31)
Well I’m here, which is exciting. Yeah. it’s yeah, it’s it’s

Martin Kelley (10:32)
You’re here? that’s great. You’ll be on YouTube, the Friend Journal YouTube. Yeah.

Beck Wren (10:40)
it’s hard sometimes when you put pieces out into the world. they kind of they disappear and they go have their own life. So I think that’s what I’m most excited about, is to find some way to connect with people and hear what people are experiencing. Because the story is its own thing. Even in the case with that essay where it’s it’s a very personal

Personal essay. it once it’s out of my hands, it belongs as much to the reader as it does to me. So I guess

Martin Kelley (11:05)
Sure, yeah, and we all interpret it in our ways, yeah.

Beck Wren (11:08)
yeah, I guess I’m not really looking for attention in that way. although it is nice that I can share my experience and hear that it has resonated or touched people in some way. That I think is really meaningful to me as a writer, and I’ve been honored with.

the response so far to that essay and this story in Friends Journal. So I’m really excited to be able to have the opportunity to share. So thank you.

Martin Kelley (11:33)
Well

we’re we’re happy to have it. Yeah, the the the whole idea of fiction and you know Friends Journal was foreign up until about a few, you know, five, six years ago, when we got a tweet from someone saying, Wouldn’t it be great if Friends Journal had an issue on science fiction? And we’re like, Hey, you know, that that might be good. So yes, we we started doing that and now it’s a a general fiction and it’s become a beloved part of our magazine and it’s just really great to have it and great to have this story. This is

One of my favorites. you know, we have no favorites in our in our stories, but this was one of my favorites this month and so I’m really glad to share it with our readers. Thank you very much for bringing it to us.

Beck Wren (12:11)
Thank you. It’s been a joy to to be able to bring it into the world and I’m really honored that it’s in Friends Journal. I think it’s awesome that Friends Journal has the fiction issue, like you say, and I’m delighted to be in it this time.

Martin Kelley (12:24)
Great, well, anyone wanting to read it, it’s called Starlings. It’s in the November twenty twenty six issue of French Journal. just go to Frenchjournal.org and you can read it as well and leave comments or maybe even write little directions for where the Carol character might go as part of the comments. That would be kind of fascinating. so thank you so much, Beck, for coming here with us today.

Beck Wren (12:46)
Thank you, it’s been a pleasure.