Bookwild - Penny Zang's Doll Parts: Dark Academia, Sylvia Plath, and Complicated Female Friendship

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

This week, I got to talk with Penny Zang about her debut novel Doll Parts! We dive into her inspiration for the story, the importance of music throughout, and the ways Sylvia Plath's life and writing influenced Doll Parts.Doll Parts SynopsisSome stories refuse to stay buried.For best friends Nikki and Sadie, college was supposed to be a fresh start, a way to blast Courtney Love from car speakers and leave their youth behind. But along with sadness-obsessed girls and intrusive professors, a dark story plagues their small all-women's school: the Sylvia Club, a campus legend surrounding the deaths of multiple Sylvia Plath-adoring students, all written off as suicides. Aspiring writer Nikki finds herself drawn to the tragic tales, so much so that dead girls begin to haunt her dark imagination. As she digs deeper, Nikki soon suspects there's much more to the story - a suspicion that will lead to a tragedy of its own, one that will tear her and Sadie apart.It's been nearly twenty years since Sadie last saw her estranged friend. Now, Nikki is dead, and when Sadie ends up pregnant by Nikki's grieving husband not long after the funeral, she finds herself stepping into her ex-best friend's seemingly perfect life. But the longer Sadie lives in Nikki's eerily preserved home, the more she sees her appear and soon, she's convinced that Nikki is sending her clues from beyond the grave. Because it seems Nikki never stopped looking for answers about what happened to the girls of the Sylvia Club, and she may have been its latest victim. Told in a dual timeline, Doll Parts is a provocative and irresistible debut, at once an exploration of the dark chasms that break apart friendships, an ode to the aching beauty of girlhood, and a sharp portrayal of grief that can physically haunt you.  Get Bookwild MerchCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackCheck Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck out the Imposter Hour Podcast with Liz and GregFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrian 

This week I got to talk with Penny Zang and it's a really cool story. I requested this art the second a hit net galley because like this just was everything I want in Dark Academia and Psychological Thriller. So I had it. And then I actually met Penny at multiple panels at Thrillerfest in June. So that was really fun and we scheduled this podcast so that we could talk about it. I think you guys will love this one. This is what it's about. For best friends Nikki and Sadie, college was supposed to be a fresh start, a way to blast Courtney

Love from car speakers and leave their youth behind. But along with sadness obsessed girls and intrusive professors, a dark story plagues their small all-women school, the Sylvia Club, a campus legend surrounding the deaths of multiple Sylvia Plath adoring students, all written off as suicides. Aspiring writer Nikki finds herself drawn to the magic tales, so much so that dead girls begin to haunt her dark imagination. As she digs deeper, Nikki soon suspects there's much more to the story, a suspicion that will lead to a tragedy of its own, one that will tear her and Sadie apart. It's been nearly 20 years since Sadie last saw her estranged friend. Now, Nikki is dead, and when Sadie ends up pregnant by Nikki's grieving husband not long after

the funeral, she finds herself stepping into her ex-best friend's seemingly perfect life. But the longer Sadie lives in Nikki's eerily preserved home, the more she sees her appear. And soon she's convinced that Nikki is sending her clues from beyond the grave. Because it seems Nikki never stopped looking for answers about what happened to the girls of the Sylvia Club. And she may have been its latest victim. This one is dark. It is moody. We have the dual timeline, so we're in some dark academia. But we also have this present timeline that is.

just as perplexing and just the way everything comes together is fantastic. So that being said, let's hear from Penny. One of the cool things that I was thinking about when I was getting ready for this was when this hit net galley, like I grabbed it up. And then we actually ended up meeting in June at Thriller Fest. And so that was super cool. And I was telling you, I was like, I haven't read it, but it's because I have to read an order for all these things. But I know I want to talk to you about it. So now we finally get to talk about it. Finally.

Yes. I love it. And I'm so glad you introduce yourself at Thriller Fest because I think I was, it's my first thriller fest and I was like a deer caught in the headlight. So I'm like, please people find me. I don't, I don't know what I'm doing. It's such a different experience. Yeah.

It's overwhelming, but fun. Yes, very fun. I'm glad. Yeah, I loved it. Yeah, it was my first one too. And I get, you're just kind of like looking. around you're like do I know these people and then you see like a super famous author and I'm like oh my yes yes I ended up in the elevator with James Patterson and I was just like oh my gosh you're on my

floor it was crazy it's wild so we are going to talk about doll parts yes but I did at the beginning wanted to get to know just a little bit about you before we dive into it so okay did you always know you wanted to write what was the or what was the moment like when you were like I want to be a writer or I have a story I need to write. Well, I think my story is similar to a lot of other writers. At least some of the other authors I've heard on the podcast. Like I knew when I was seven, you know, a great teacher. My second grade teacher gave me a composition book.

And right at the same time, I would happen to be like learning to love books. And it was, you know, this perfect combination of people to write books. And I can write too. Like I know how to make my letters and I know how to put it all in there. So that probably is where it all started. But I especially think when my son was, my son is 12 now, but when he was a baby, he didn't sleep. He didn't sleep for a very long time.

And I was up in the middle of the night with him anyway. And I had all these pages from grad school from my MFA program and, you know, just so much written already. And I thought, if I'm going to be awake anyway with this baby, you know, I can't fall back asleep, he's back asleep, but I'm not. Then maybe I can do something with this time. And I started kind of playing with all these pages, all these stories I had. And I ended up putting together a book that got me my first agent. That book did not sell. But that's where I think I realized, like, one, I'm not going to ever have any more time than I have now. Like it'll get easier. Hopefully,

I see it gets older. But if I want to do this, then I have to just make it happen. Yes. Yeah. That makes sense. With your writing process, so it sounds like in that case, it was like, I'm awake at these times because of my son, so I'll write. How did your writing process kind of develop from there?

Do you like have a word count each day or how do you approach it? I don't have a word count each day, but I did, around that time I found back when Twitter was still Twitter, the 5 a.m. Writers Club, other writers who, usually with kids or with other, you know, day jobs and their only writing time is very early in the morning. So that's where that part of my writing process kind of evolved. I think I, if I hadn't found that group, I would have, I don't know, I just enjoyed waking up early. Like, I liked getting it done, just in case the whole rest of the day fell apart and it often does, right? Yes, especially kids kids pets day job you know the power goes out anything can happen so i'd have the writing done

for the day um so that part of my writing process started when my son was little but i found a community too and that that that helped and now um that community has yeah has kind of morphed we're trying we're on other platforms there's a discord group um so i can still do a daily check-in and it feels like i have a little community that's good that hopes a lot i bet It helps enormously. Yeah. Do you plot or do you pants it? Are you a mixture?

I have always been a pancer. Okay. I am horrible at outlines. Which is funny to say because I teach. I teach English 101 and sometimes my students have to do outlines. But I like a laid back outline for my students. I'm like, you know, not everyone's brain works that way. So I do a lot of like outlining.

after the draft is done. For my students, I would call that a post-draft outline or a reverse outline. And I think that's the kind of outlining that probably as close to an outline as I get. Yeah, it's kind of like brainstorming and then doing the outline a little bit. Yeah. Once I know where the story is going, then I can say, okay, here's what I've got. Can I move this around? Is this salvageable?

Is there something here? But as I was writing, I just turned in book two to my editor. so I'm waiting on edits. And because I was on a deadline for that, I had to do a little more outlining. I had to write a synopsis and really think about the ending, because I didn't have, you know, my first book, I was just writing. Like, I didn't know if anyone would ever see it ever. Suddenly a deadline changes process, I think.

It's just a lot of stuff, yeah. With your characters, do you take any time to get to know them before? Or is it kind of in that first draft where you kind of learn who the characters are? I learned through writing during the drafting process for sure. And I think with each draft, and not just a whole draft, like each time I go through a chapter or a scene, it's like a little intuitive sound check. Like, does this sound right? Would this character really say that?

Would this character really wear this or listen to this song? And it's just every time you go through, it's just, just a temperature check. Does this sound accurate for this character? And so, yeah, I think there's probably a more efficient way to do it for sure. But I like the process of doing it while I draft and while I revise. So with this one, there's a lot going on in this book. But what was your initial inspiration for it?

Well, what I've been becoming more comfortable talking about probably the initial inspiration is. So my book is about these two friends and one of those friends at the beginning of the book has died. And at the beginning of 2016, one of my best friends died kind of unexpectedly. And, you know, I, as anyone that has gone through any kind of grief or loss, which is all of us, right? At some point, you know, there isn't always as a long period of mourning as we would like because we have to move on, right? To go to work, go to work. You have to take the dog for a walk and you still do this. dishes and pay your bills. So in the midst of kind of this delayed grieving to my son with a toddler

then, I started having these wild dreams about dead women. Wow. In my closet, trying on my dresses, and just especially dreams about my friend and just so spooky and creepy, but at the same time, there was something reassuring about it. It wasn't scary. It was like, okay, I've got company. And since I was waking up anyway, early to write, when, you know, the house is quiet and I'm not fully awake, I just started writing about these women. And eventually realized I was writing a story about friendship, of course. How could I not?

And friendship loss. So that was probably the initial spark that, and that's what I always wanted a story to be. about. So even though, like you said, there's a lot going on. Yes. It's, I hope at the heart of it for me, always it was the friendship that was what I, no matter, I would revise 100 things with my agent, with my editor, but that was one thing I wouldn't change. And that's, this is a story about friendship. Yeah. I, I could see why. So there's a heavy Sylvia Plath influence in it as well. people have already heard the synopsis there's like a club on campus um and it it very much adds to like the vibes and the feel of the story so is there something that drew you to incorporating her

to so much of it well i think i started i because i teach i was teaching probably a sylvia plath poem in one of my intro to literature classes. And the students will do some light research, you know, look at the library databases. And anyone that's done that kind of research on Sylvia Plath, what always comes up is, of course, biographical research. It's always about not so much her life, but her death, how she died and how that influenced her poetry. Like, everyone's reading through this lens of her death. Yeah. And the tragedy of her life.

and I just thought, I don't know, I thought, that can't be everything. Why is it the only thing we know about Sylvia Plath, like the most surface level? And so I started, I felt out a big rabbit hole. I started reading Sylvia Plath biographies and turns out there are a lot of them. There are a lot of books about Sylvia Plath. Wow. And I was just fascinating me. I learned so much about her, most of it that didn't make it into the book because it's fiction, of course.

But fascinated especially by how. Well, like I said, people romanticize her death. People focus only on her death. Yes. And she was, besides being brilliant, she loved being a mom. She was very domestic. She loved cooking and being in the house and stuff you would never think. Like, we think of Sylvia Plath as like the dark, sad girl of literature.

But you can find pictures online of her like at the beach. She's like a blonde hair and she's cheesing for the camera and she's this, she looks happy. and like an ordinary girl. And I thought there's a story there. Yeah. And for all of us, right? There's this public persona, what people think they know about us, but there's also what our day-to-day life looks like. Right.

That's a really good point. And it does focus on that, like all of the kind of like the mundaneity or mundanities. I don't know how you pronounce that one of like both of their lives even. So was the college that they go to was it inspired by anything real or was it just like you wanted them at this fictional women's college? So I did go to an all women's college, a Catholic all women's college north of Baltimore, much like the one in my book. And the novel, it's called Lock Raven College. There is a Lock Raven High School. Oh.

there, but I've never been there, which is all named after Lock Raven Falls, this area around Baltimore. So yeah, I was thinking a lot about the college that I went to, this really small school, so close to Baltimore City, but also just far enough away that you can still find woods and you can still find these quiet little, little areas. Yeah. But my school, for anyone that is listening, I don't think it was haunted. I never experienced any. There's no weird, strange stories going on there.

No ghosts that I saw, though I'm sure. I hope that people will come out of the woodwork and tell me like, oh, yeah, there were ghost stories there. I was only there for like two years because I transferred there. But that setting seemed really ripe for like, oh, a good story. story could happen here. Yes, it really is. The, so their friendship that we were kind of talking about is obviously like front and center for this story. And it's very complicated. There's like love, there's rivalry, there's betrayal, which I think probably happens in a lot of our long-term

relationships with people in general, just because we're all human. So how did you approach writing their dynamic as like kind of lived in and very real. Oh gosh. I think I just probably wrote from my experience, not just from that. My one friend who passed away. But I've been lucky throughout my whole life to always have really good girlfriends. But also some bad girlfriends. Some friendships that were shallow.

Like, you know, you work wait tables with someone and you only know them for two months. Right. But I also made friends for life while I was. weighted tables. And so I've got this like rich history of experiences that I think of, maybe I know more about that than any other subject. I could just, it felt, it felt natural to write friendship. Yeah. In this way. Like when we describe sometimes a book about friendship, about female friendship, we use the word complex. Yeah. And I think, I think all female friendships are complex. Yeah. Fraught was so much that we,

We never even talk about all the comparing yourself and envy, but also that love that feels like family and yes. There's also that interesting like and there's some of this like where they feel rivalish or whatever. But there's also that sometimes you're like I you're so cool like I want to be you or like that becomes a thing in friendship and then transitioning into my next question. Um, Sadie does kind of take over Nikki's life after she dies. So she marries her, I guess he called an ex-husband because she died. I don't know. She marries her husband. She moves into the house. Um, this is all in the first couple chapters. And it's it's unnerving. Like at the way that we get the information even, you're like, oh, oh, oh. Okay. Okay. Um, so what kind of. Um, so what kind of, of took you in that direction with the present timeline.

I don't, maybe I watched too much true crime, like too much date line, but I think this kind of thing happens. Like people, you're right, especially when they grieve together. Yes, grieving together. And that certainly is not, not been my experience, but. Yeah. And I see a lot of times, no specific examples, but I think sometimes after a loss, the man will get married sooner or be in a relationship right away, or at least I've seen that a lot.

But, you know, honestly, when I was writing it, so I was doing all the Sylvia Plath research. And one figure that that came out of that research was Asio Wevel, who not a lot of people know, she's been like a footnote in the Ted Hughes-Sylvia Plath story for so long. And not to get too deep into a rabbit hole here, but I think this stuff is fascinating. Yes. It's a podcast. We want you to talk. Okay, okay. A lot of more modern contemporary Sylvia Plath scholars have resurrected Alcea Wevel and written whole books about her now. But basically she was the woman that Ted Hughes was dating, seeing when Sylvia Plath died. Yeah.

And so Sylvia Plath died. She's got two young children. and, you know, Ted Hughes, this is in the 60s, he's not going to take care of his children by himself. So he moves this woman into the house immediately after. So, I mean, we think about what that house probably was like. Like her shoes are probably still there by the door. Her hair is still in the bristles of the brush, all the stuff she has touched. And there's, I think, a letter from Osceo Wevel to someone who calls this house she's living in, the ghost house. nice because if sylviaplast going to haunt anyone it's going to be this woman right yes yes um this woman that

her husband was sleeping with and i don't know i just became fascinated with this woman's story um because i mean a lot of times characters like this in fiction we call unlikable characters right um this woman that's done this horrible thing but i never thought of my character sadia's unlikable i'm like she's done this kind of unlikable thing, this weird thing, but that's, that's what happened. And the rest of the story kind of, I was thinking a lot about all that research and the Sylvia class of it all, for sure. So, I mean, it's not cool what happened to everybody, but it's so cool that it's even like adjacent to Sylvia since it's so much of the story. Yeah, I don't know, I just found that that fascinating, that whole story. Yeah.

So you kind of cover a couple different topics or themes. There's the grief element. There's obsession. And then there's also like how difficult it is to understand our own identities even. Was that kind of probably, I'm sure some of the grief was coming from what you were going through. But was there something about those topics that kind of drew you to writing about them? Well, definitely the grief, right? like you said.

I think what I've learned from my own experience with grief is that it changes you completely. I think we sometimes think of like there's a grieving period and you go through all these steps, right? And then and then you're done. But it doesn't work that way, especially when it's a huge loss, a parent, a sibling, a best friend. Gosh, it becomes who you are. It's a part of you.

Yeah. Like a second skin. And it gets easier with time, but it just, I guess what I'm saying is I didn't have to work to layer that element of the story into each chapter, each scene, because I just knew these characters and both the main characters, Nikki and Sadie are grieving in their own ways. Yes. Then that it has already changed them. They are already like a day to day. Every song you hear, a certain smell, a sudden memory. It's just for me that that was what that experience. was like is still like for me yeah so that part wasn't hard to kind of weave in yeah yeah and then the go ahead i was i think i was trying to remember all the thing that you said obsession too yeah yeah um well i guess obsession works the same way by his nature obsession is something that's always present yeah so so you mentioned now i'm thinking i'm thinking on a whole other tangent um you're making me think of

that I hadn't even thought of. So grief, grief, obsession and identity. Like these three strands, like a braid. Yeah. And probably on some level,

I was trying to work all of those in, as I wrote, like weave them in as a braid. The grief and the obsession, I think, are easier in identity. I don't know how that came about, honestly.

It was maybe part of it is because it feels like a bit of a coming of age story, at least for Nikki, because she's a freshman in college. Yes. Yeah, you can have the coming of age in that timeline. And then the present timeline, the, like, identity struggles that she kind of took over her life.

Yeah. So there's somebody doing these stuff going on there. Yeah. She's a new mom and she's kind of grappling with who she is, who she used to be. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Speaking of new mom, I don't have it copied, but, like, the first sentence is something like the nipples float at the top of the water. Yeah.

I can't remember. And at first I was like, wait, wait, what? Did I like, because you know how like when you have net galley books? Like it doesn't always have the cover like in your digital libraries. I'm like, did I click the wrong one? I didn't think you. And then I was like, oh, okay. So it's like clearly like bottle like baby bottle. But like it also sets such a very like feminine tone where it's also like, it's also like what you're reading isn't exactly what you think until you read the rest of the sentences. So did you, did you think? Did you think? a lot about that first sentence because it's so unique um gosh i wrote it and i really liked it

and i kept waiting for someone to make me change it like my editor or my agent like to even suggest a different first line or let's let's bury it a little bit but no one ever did and i still i love i'm so glad you mentioned it because no one else is yeah i started and i was like wait a second and then i was like oh that's what it means no and you know so um gosh, about a month ago, my mother-in-law came to visit and I have, you know, the arcs of the book and she really wanted to read it. So I, she read it while she was here, which was super unnerving. I was just saying, no pressure. She opened it up and started reading.

I'm like, watching her face. Like, is she going to react to that line about that has the word nipples in it? Because if she's cool with it, then maybe she'll be cool with the rest. Because it gets a little strange. Yeah. And she didn't, she didn't react. so I guess she was all right. I'm impressed.

I always love, like obviously sometimes you just start with a sentence and it gets you going, but it is fun the way that certain authors decide to start their books. And my friend Greg, Greg Wans and Liz Keenan, they have an account. And he always does like first sentence. I don't know if it's even a weekly thing, but he has like a series of like, just posting the first sentence of books. And it was always fascinating when you think about like, oh, this is really your inroad into the story.

Like, what do you choose for that? Right. Yeah. So we've kind of talked about it, but we have kind of like dark academia and kind of coming of age happening in one timeline. And then we have like it almost feels like a psychological thriller in the present timeline as well with some haunting going on. So what drew you to like, because it almost is a genre blend to me.

So what made you write like those stories in like the past and the present? That's a good question. You're giving me some ones that make me think here. I love reading these kind of books, I think. Yeah. I love thrillers. I like psychological thriller especially. And I like a good ghost story.

Yeah. You know, the ghosts. Or write what I like. Yeah. What I like to read. The ghost kind of just came out of probably because of all the grief experience I was talking about. Yeah. And again, like I was saying about that first line, I thought someone's going to ask me to tone this down a little bit. But my editor is so awesome. My editor at source books, she actually pushed me to go further.

She's like, you know, I don't think it would hurt. I'm like, all right, let's do it. And I liked the idea of blending that. I like those kind of books too. Like, it's and I didn't never, when I was querying this novel, I didn't know what genre to call it. I was like, it's literary, it's suspense, but it's got this element to it. And yeah, literary suspense probably is the broadest way to talk about it.

But a lot of readers I've noticed, call it horror too. That's what I was going to mention. It's so hard to tell, like, is just a ghost horror or not? Right. You know, I never thought of it that way when I was writing. Not until I saw one or two reviews. I have not been reading the reviews otherwise, but I did start to see that.

I was like, oh, that's interesting. Yeah. I'm not upset about it, but it never occurred to me that it was that kind of story. I always wonder about that to you. Because I'm like, I don't, I read. some horror, but it's like, I think I tend to go towards like psychological horror or like, social, social horror. That's when it's like kind of talking about culture with horror.

And so it's like there are versions of horror where it's like, it's not like I say yes to like every kind of horror. But I like the use, I mean, especially in this case of like you're getting like a message from the beyond is kind of what's like adding to the mystery. the present tense. Right. Yeah. It's fascinating, though.

How you figure out how to genre eyes books. I don't know how it happens, but. Yeah. I was talking to John Fram about the same thing because I really love his book, No Road Home. And it's the same thing where it's mostly like a family drama, thriller, kind of locked room. You're locked in their, like, really huge home.

But then, like, there are very distinct horror elements at the end. And he was like, I didn't even know I wrote a horror book until someone told me I wrote a horror book. So it's so confusing how to pick them. Yeah. Well, and I felt, I shouldn't say I felt bad. But I have some people in my life who they started, they saw the cover. They started reading the book. And they're like, this, Penny, please tell us.

This isn't a scary book. We don't like scary books. I'm like, no, it's not scary at all. And then I started seeing reviews that said otherwise. I'm like, oh. Yeah. Maybe this isn't for my neighbor next door or a certain co-worker. Yeah, I wouldn't call it scary, but maybe it's so creepy for people to maybe like think about it happening to them. Maybe that's kind of some of it. Well, I've just been telling people it's if they're ghosts, they're, let's call them literary ghosts. They're not like, um,

scary ghosts. Yes, because it is. It's serving that purpose too. You're right. It's not serving like what you think of with horror. I like that. That's what I'm going to tell people. Let's go with that. And she was like, I saw this book and I was like, this is such a Kate book, but I'll just wait until she reads it. So I will explain this all to her this way. Good. So especially at the college in the college timeline, there's kind of like this exploration of like legend and truth and kind of like folklore too. Was there anything you were drawing? from for that or was it just kind of like you know you have the sylvia plath club and mysterious stuff happens yeah i did not have any particular legend in mind i invented the sylvia plath club yeah but it came out of the research like i was saying when i was doing all this research on

sylvia plath which led me down all sorts of rabbit holes um sylvia plath there's a whole lore around her, right? And I think, so I think when I first started even conceiving of that part of this book, I thought, all right, I've got these two timelines and the past timeline on this campus. These girls have got to, there's got to be some central figure that they all emulate or otherwise are interested in. Some, I was thinking like pop culture, like, I don't know, I think for like half a second, I thought maybe like Marilyn Monroe. That's who I was thinking about too when you were. saying people that we like think of in like one way and it's like she was also just a girl. Right. And then as soon as I landed on Sylvia Plath without at that point knowing much about her,

I thought, oh, that's that's got to be it. Yeah. So she wasn't something I wondered while I was reading if she was someone you were always interested in. But this was kind of like a newfound interest. Yes, absolutely. And now it feels like it's been my whole life. But honestly, yeah, I don't think I read the bell jar until I was an adult. I didn't absorb that when I was younger in the same way that I know a lot of people. Yes. Kind of cling to that book. And I love it. And I feel like I reread it, especially the beginning of it. The intro was so good. That first page or two. And you have, you have some Easter eggs that you were talking about. Yes. I think the easiest one to talk about would be the cover at this point. So there is like a font carryover.

from, I don't know if that's like the original publication of the bell jar, but there is like font on the cover that that kind of alludes to the bell jar. Yes. On the cover of Dalparts where it says a novel, that's the that iconic bell jar font. And then in the hard, the hard back, if you take off the dust jacket and look at the spine, doll parts is written in that same font. Oh, that's cool. And I wish I knew the name. Someone told me the name of that font. I can't remember off the top of my head.

It's for people in the know, it's always interesting to see who spots it. Like some people are immediately like, oh, that's the bell jar. Yes. Yeah, that's cool. You're able to kind of do homages to that. The other thing that really shapes a lot of the vibe, actually, is music. Especially in the 90s, early 2000s. There's a lot of reference.

since references to music. So what made you want to kind of include those to kind of help set the tone more too? Well, once we had the title doll parts, because that was not the original title, once the title switched. And that was after, after like the book deal before like the announcement. Okay. You know, the publisher's marketplace announcement. We did some discussion about the title.

And once we landed on dial parts and my editor kind of came to me with that title, I thought, oh, that's perfect. And then it gave me, it felt, I felt like a license to take what I already had some mentions of music, certainly the 90s timeline to amp it up a lot more. And I already had made a playlist. I'm that kind of writer. I have a playlist and Pinterest mood boards and, you know, a board above my. desk with lots of little point of inspiration. So I already had this playlist. I'm like, well, maybe what if the playlist starts coming into the book more? That's cool. Not so obscurely. Yeah. So that was fun. That was fun to write about the fashion of that time period to remember,

like, yeah, things I wore in my 17. I wish I still had all my 17 magazines. Yes. I was like thinking about what everyone wore back then and the, the, You know, things we, the stores we went to at the mall, and I was just thinking a lot about that time period. Yeah. Yeah. You really, it's very nostalgic in that way. For those of us, I'm sure there are some readers who didn't experience and there's that young. But for those who did experience it, it's very nostalgic.

Well, and that's okay, too, because when I go to the store, I see a whole lot of clothes that remind me of things I owned. There's a lot coming back. I feel so old. You see those stretchy shirts are even coming back. now. Yes. Like a little slip dress with a t-shirt underneath. Yes. That was my my whole fashion vibes. So easy. Yeah. A teenager. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. You're going to feel all of the 90s feels, basically. Speaking of time and timelines, it is written in, we've talked about it, it is written into dual timelines. And I always wonder, I know you don't plot, but did you read?

write it linearly? Like, did you write what happened in the past and then write the present or the future? Or did you kind of write it the way that it appears in the book? I think I wrote it the way it appears, but that sounds more impressive than it is. It's mostly that I would write part of it and get to a stopping point and not know what to do. So I would go to that other timeline. And yeah, because I wanted them to inform each other like there are echoes. What's happening in the past lingers over into the present. So every time I reach that kind of whether it was a pinch point that I didn't know where to go next or just I felt like I'd reached a good place to pause, I would move to the other timeline. Of course, a lot happened in revision.

Revision helped to balance it out more. Oh, yeah. make sure it all flowed. Yeah. But yeah, I think I was, I like both timelines so much. And it was fun to slip in and out of them. That's what I was going to say. Is it because like I enjoyed both of them equally.

And so it sounds like you enjoyed writing both of them equally too. There wasn't like a favorite. No. I started with Sadie with the present timeline. That's where it all started really with this woman as a new mom. feeling like in dealing with grief that she doesn't know she really is still clinging to right for obvious reasons that's where where i started now that i've yeah kind of told you a little bit about the inspiration behind it and new motherhood was at the time i started writing some of those scenes

was still very fresh to me and in my head um with their names are their names related to anything or Did you just like those names? The Nikki and Sadie names? I think this only one other person has asked me about this. I had their names. I don't know why I

Oh, because I was thinking about that Prince song, Darling Nikki. Oh, yeah. And then I wanted the other character to also have a song, like her song to be name, and there's There's sexy Sadie from the Beatles.

And then I started naming a lot of the other female characters in that same way. So there's a Caroline and there's, gosh, even some of the minor characters have names that come from songs. The baby is named Rian and from the Stevie Nix, the Fleetwood Mac song. So it was just what I, it didn't mean anything necessarily to the story, but it helps pick them. Yeah. Yes. That's cool. That's so cool to like know those little things about it. Did you, did you, um, it left my head completely. There's something you said that made me think of something else, but it's gone now. I don't know. It might be gone. That's all right. It might have just flooded. It happens. Um, yeah, this is going to drive me nuts. Oh, well. Okay. You might think of it. Yeah. I'm technically.

out of question so I'm like I can't pick another one I need to know what it's said oh well um well I loved it I loved the dark vibes I always love friendship it's a really fun one um now I realize I have even more to go research about Sylvia Plath because now I want to know even more so that's always a fun one also I think you mentioned you turned in book too and I saw there's yeah Edgar Allan Poe vibes was that way you posted was part yes yes yes so Are you going to write dark, moody books that are like writer adjacent? Or, well, I guess I was going to say forever. Or is it just kind of like what's interesting to you right now?

It's what's interesting to me right now. Yeah. But I'm not opposed. Yeah. So my second book, I can't say too much about it yet. I don't have a pub date, but we're looking at next fall. And hopefully I will have some fall of 2026. I'll have more information soon.

I hope. But it also takes place in. Baltimore and from Baltimore originally. And Edgar Allan Poe died in Baltimore and is very much, at least for the people of Baltimore, so many cities claim Edgar Allan Poe because he lived in like up the eastern seaboard in so many places. But Baltimore really claims Poe. We've got a football team named the Ravens.

I did not you realize that. Yes. Yes. There's so much. There's so much Poe there. Oh, wow. So, yeah. I started playing with some of those stories a little bit for book too.

I say all this, even though it's not gotten my edits back from my editor. Yeah. As of right now, it is. It won't change drastic. We also don't have to do. A Po-A Jason story. Yeah. If it changes, I bet those things will stay the same.

I am so excited for that one now, too. That would be perfect for fall if it ends up being fall. I'm excited for that one. Well, where can people follow you to stay up to date on all these? fun things you're writing well i am on all the platforms under under the name penny zang if you just search for penny zang um but i am on substack as well i have a substack newsletter called morning pages but spelled like m o you are n i and g and um yeah that's probably the the best way to get updates i think i use instagram the most probably instagram and substack yeah yeah awesome that's where you can

find me. Well, I'll put those links in the show notes and I'm so glad we got to talk about it. I am so glad. Yeah, this is fun.