Greyt Big Talk w/ James Renner
Weird in Ohio
James Renner, a novelist and long time contributing writer to the FREE times and Cleveland Scene.
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James Renner
True crime author and journalist
James Renner is a Cleveland journalist and author best known for his true crime work. As a reporter for Cleveland Scene and the Free Times he covered some of the strangest stories to come out of the city, uncovering new clues in the cold-case murder of Amy Mihaljevic, and his reporting helped close the Tina Harmon case in 2009. His writing has appeared in the Best American Crime Reporting anthology.
His books include the novels The Man from Primrose Lane and The Great Forgetting, the local legends collection It Came from Ohio, and the nonfiction True Crime Addict, Little, Crazy Children, Scout Camp (2025) and A Cruise to Nowhere: My Search for Amy Lynn Bradley (2026). He hosts the podcasts True Crime This Week and The Philosophy of Crime. He also founded The Porchlight Project, a nonprofit that pays for new DNA testing in Ohio cold cases; its funding of genetic genealogy led to an arrest in the murder of Barbara Blatnik in 2020.
Captured moments
29 photos · In one? Open it and tag yourself.
Photos by Kyle Kresge
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Location
Jakprints
3133 Chester Ave, Cleveland, OH, 44114
Jakprints is a Cleveland custom printing company making custom printed t-shirts, embroidered caps, business cards, flyers and more. Its headquarters is a 150,000-square-foot facility on Chester Avenue in Midtown.
About this event
James Renner, a novelist and long time contributing writer to the FREE times and Cleveland Scene. His collection of stories about frightening local legends is published as the book "It Came from Ohio" and he recently released a new nonfiction thriller "True Crime Addict" which documents real crime stories for fans of the SERIAL Podcast and MAKING A MURDERER.