Season 4, Episode 3: This Story Breaks All the Rules

In this episode, Julia F. Green and Ralph Walker welcome novelist, professor, and 5am Writers Club stalwart Penny Zang for a heated discussion about Tobias Wolff’s rule-breaking short story, “Bullet in the Brain.”Reading: Bullet in the Brain by Tobias WolffTheir conversation explores the delicate art of an unlikable protagonist, the controversial choice to delay backstory till the end of a piece, and whether or not this MFA classic is really a story at all.Guest Bio:Penny Zang is from Maryland and graduated with an MFA in Fiction from West Virginia University. Her work has appeared in the Potomac Review, Louisville Review, and South 85, among others. She is the 2024 Elizabeth Boatwright Coker fiction fellow via the South Carolina Academy of Authors. She lives in South Carolina, where she teaches English. She is the author of Doll Parts and Accidents Never Happen.You can find Writing in the Dark on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and subscribing is a great way to support this work. Thanks, as always, for listening.Listen to previous episodes.Writing in the Dark is co-hosted by Julia F. Green (Substack, website) and Ralph Walker (Twitter, website) and edited by Aaron Fyler, with cover art by Jarmusch. Get full access to Writing is Joy at writingisjoy.substack.com/subscribe