Crab Monsters Are My Kind of Monsters

A New Year of Glimmers Pinched Between Our Claws

Stream it on Amazon Prime. Thank me later.

Happy new year! If you are receiving this email, thank you for signing up for Mourning Pages. New subscribers: welcome to the weirdness. It’s just a pinch of weird, though, mixed in with all the sadness and delight. I mean, the creative process is weird. Our daily lives—at least mine—is often strange and hilarious. If you’ve don’t mind a bit of weird, hell, if you can claim a bit of your own weirdness, we’re going to be good friends.

Things have been quiet lately, a necessary break from emails and teaching and coordinating things. I don’t mind quiet. But it does mean that when the world wakes up again for work and meetings, when swim practice and email notifications start back up, I feel a bit drained. I’ve already cashed in on all the rest I got over the holidays and my brain wouldn’t let me sleep if I tried.

So, I keep my eye out for the joy, as Julia F. Green has instilled in me. And I let myself get really excited because this year is my debut year. 2025 is the year of Doll Parts. There is so much to look forward to, after so much hard work to get to this place. Despite the evergreen grief and anxiety that are part of me now, I’m going to soak up all the joy I can.

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On this tenth day of the year, I have ten glimmers to share. Ten new things that have made me into a magpie, that have twisted and reshaped my brain. And some that just brought me unspeakable DELIGHT.

1. Attack of the Crab Monsters

I’ve been on a hunt for a rabbit hole to fall down over the last six months. I’ve been looking for a new obsession to unlock something I can’t name in my new work-in-progress. I find lots of things interesting, stacks and stacks of library holds to prove it, but then I move on.

All of which is my way of saying that maybe old horror B-movies are my new thing? I have loved the movie poster for Attack of the Crab Monsters (pictured above) for years and it only recently occurred to me that I should watch the actual movie. I streamed it on Amazon Prime. It was as wonderful as you can probably expect. And now I have a whole new stack of library books about cult horror and a Pinterest board filled with pulp book covers.

Delight.

2. Am I part of the your surveillance team?

There seems to be a collective exhaustion with social media and if this were any other year, I’d be ready to step back from all the sites or just check out completely. Alas, in my debut year, when I have a book to promote, I’m still very much online.

It’s that idea of “if it’s free, than you’re the product” that is really bugging me about Facebook and Instagram in particular. On the latest episode of one of my favorite podcasts, Vibe Check, a brief discussion about surveillance, especially in regards to social media, has got me pondering it all. Not surveillance in terms of Big Brother watching me, but more so the ways in which we watch each other. There are “friends” who I know so much about from their online lives but haven’t spoken to in decades. We don’t even engage with each other’s posts. But we’re always watching.

I’m working on how much time I want to spend in these spaces, and how best to use social media that works for my mental health. Because if all I’m doing is watching the lives of others without engaging with them, I need a new plan.

3. Octavia Butler

I’m late to read Parable of the Sower, a novel that is currently spiraling through me. I love Octavia Butler’s work, especially her novel Kindred, but haven’t let myself read Parable of the Sower. I expected it would be too hard for me. And it is in some ways, but I’m reading it anyway. Much has already been written about Butler’s ability to predict the future. The novel is set in 2024 and beyond. All I know is that this book will leave a mark. I’m taking my time.

4. YA Literature—on the job training

Due to sudden changes in my schedule, I am teaching a course in Young Adult Literature this semester. Expect to hear me talk more about this soon. I have a lot to learn, a lot of books to read, and even though I’ll be learning as I go, I’m a little excited to shake things up a bit.

5. New Cards

3 of Wands—my card of the year

Not every glimmer is full of sparkle and shine, but this one is. I’ve fallen in love with The Light Seer’s Tarot and it has made these first days of the year so much gentler for me. It’s a beautiful deck. Worth checking out for my tarot readers out there.

6. Doll Parts Pink

Matching dresses from the Golden Globes to my book cover

I’m calling it Doll Parts Pink, my color of the year. Honestly, I have waited from the sidelines for years to jump on cute, fun Instagram trends like this one. And now I can! Authors matching dresses from the awards shows to their book covers—yes please.

It is especially fitting because there are A LOT of dresses, mostly the thrift store kind, in Doll Parts. Just wait.

7. Betting on myself

From Jami Attenberg: “Here is what I know: This is the year I bet on myself. This is the year I go all in on me and my work, and I give it every last ounce of my creative self to make something fucking brilliant. I have other responsibilities, of course, like my friends and family and my community. And I need to be healthy and strong. But I know what it means to prioritize my work, and I am hell bent on doing it.

8. Snow Days

I was feeling grumpy at first about the snow headed our way this week. We already missed so much school last year because of the hurricane and the whole world tends to shut down in the south for snow, even if it isn’t much of anything actually on the ground. But then I remembered that we haven’t seen snow in three years. And my son is still at the age where it seems a little magical, a little wondrous.

So, we’re enjoying the hot chocolate, the wintery walks, homemade pizza, and anticipating a lot of puny southern snowmen. IYKYK.

9. Joy is not made to be a crumb

Digging out my markers again

I didn’t consciously choose a mantra for this year or this month, but I’ve found myself repeating this line from Mary Oliver’s “Don’t Hesitate,” so I guess it’s my mantra now:

“Joy is not made to be a crumb.”

10. Book birthdays and real birthdays

I tend to post photos of Sarah on two days: January 1, the day she died, and August 26, the day she was born. This year, I already have all the feels because August 26 is also my book’s birthday—a book very much haunted by her memory. I expect many more complicated feelings this year as I promote Doll Parts and think of her at the same time.

There’s a glimmer there. Even the grief does this sparkly thing.

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So, not too much weirdness, after all.

Warmth and crab monsters to all of you,

—Penny

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  More about Doll Parts, forthcoming from Sourcebooks on August 26, 2025.

  The Virgin Suicides meets I Have Some Questions For You in a dual timeline suspense following one woman as she begins to uncover the truth of the death of her estranged best friend and the Sylvia Plath adoring sad girls they attended college with decades ago, all while holding a secret that will slowly unravel her new, suburban dream life.