- "The Other Black Girl" is one of the most anticipated and critically acclaimed releases of 2021.

Part thriller and part social commentary, the book's author has been heralded for her, and I'm quoting here, "genre bending evisceration of workplace privilege."

That's some praise.

She's the Zakiya Dalila Harris, this week on "Story In The Public Square."

(upbeat music) Hello, and welcome to "Story In The Public Square," where storytelling meets public affairs.

I'm Jim Ludes from the Pell Center at Salve Regina University.

- And I'm G. Wayne Miller with The Providence Journal.

This week, we're joined by Zakiya Dalila Harris, an author whose debut novel "The Other Black Girl" was released early this summer to the kind of critical and commercial praise that new authors only dream about.

Zakiya, thank you so much for being with us.

- Thank you so much for having me.

I'm so excited to be chatting with you both today.

- So "The Other Black Girl" really is a remarkable read.

I couldn't put it down.

For the audience though, who hasn't read it yet, give us just a quick overview of what the book is.

- Thank you.

Absolutely.

So "The Other Black Girl" follows Nella Rogers, who is a young, black editorial assistant, who has been the only black person working at the prestigious publishing house, Wagner Books, for the last two years.

So she's been the only black person there.

She's been experiencing all the microaggressions, feels like she is the spokesperson for all the black things in all of the world.

And it's exhausting so she's really excited when Hazel, another young black woman comes and starts working in the cubicle next to hers.

Hazel is from Harlem.

She is cool.

She is hip and Nella hopes that they will have some kind of friendship, a bond over being the only two black women in the office.

But very quickly things start to get very weird and Nella starts to wonder if Hazel is really all that she seems.

And also I should add unfolding alongside Nella's story are the stories of three other black women who are all also tied to the world of media, the world of publishing specifically.

And they're all bound to this one, chilling secret that has implications for all of them and also black people all over the world.

- So without giving away the plot and the ending, you say things start getting really weird.

Can you just sort of summarize that in a way that doesn't, take away the great ending and the great plot of the book?

- Absolutely, yeah, so, so office politics start to get very personal, I will say at Wagner Books.

There are strange interactions.

Nella's relationship with her white coworkers changes now that Hazel is here and Nella also starts to get these very, very chilling notes that tell her, leave Wagner now.

She just finds one of his notes while she's at her desk.

And so there seems to be these other forces at work that are possibly suggesting that maybe being at Wagner Books is not all it's cracked up to be.

- So the book has been described as a combination of many different genres and you're hitting on one here, dark comedy is one of the genres this has been compared to, or described as.

Talk about that element and then we can get into maybe the horror and thriller parts too, because it's quite a mix.

It's quite a combination that you've brought together seamlessly, I would add.

So start with the dark comedy.

- Thank you.

Yeah, and dark comedy is a really big part of who I am.

I can be very, I can be optimistic, but I'm also very cynical.

I think that will come through as you read the book and yeah, I wanted to touch on just all of the ways that being at Wagner Books for Nella as the only one, it's a lot.

It's heavy in a lot of ways.

Nella sees this underside, this underbelly of what corporate American culture looks like, the ways in which publishers and people in publishing talk about books and all of those conversations that Nella sees.

In a lot of ways, I like to poke fun at publishing and poke fun at these kinds of things that we don't think a lot about in terms of like, this book needs this book and all of those good jargony things that we don't think twice about a lot of the time.

So I wanted to get at that.

But I also think it's just, there's a lot of funniness in how absurd that world is too and how absurd it is that, I mean, Nella is treated as the spokesperson and is the person that they look to in certain situations and just how it can be so uncomfortable to be that person.

But also I think there's a humor in it, and I think it's important to see the humor in the ways in which we treat each other, the ways in which we have our prejudices about one another and that was important for me to show.

- You earned your insights about the world of publishing though, honestly.

I mean, you worked in the world of publishing before publishing the book.

- Yes, yeah, and I mean that in a lot of ways, of course informed my perspective on publishing.

And I have to say, I am still, I feel like the publishing blood still runs through my veins.

I always joke, it's a very corny joke, but you can take the girl out of publishing, but you can't take the publishing out of the girl.

(all chuckling) And it's kind of, I think in some ways, it can be cult-like too, because you are giving yourself to this whole, this, I don't know, higher power, this being of we're all working to publish this book, but what does that mean when not everyone is on board with the book?

Or what does that mean when that book is at the expense, happening at the expense of representation of black people like we see with one particular author that Nella has to work with.

So it was, it was really fun to poke holes in this thing that for years, I had really invested myself in and that I respect in so many ways, but also there are so many flaws too.

- So you left that publishing house and it was a division of Penguin Random if I have that correctly.

You left to actually start writing this book.

So that, I would describe that as a leap of faith.

I mean, you didn't have a contract at that time.

You were working on the book, but you just flat out left.

Talk about that.

I mean, that's a pretty daring, adventuresome, maybe that's not - [Jim] Courageous.

- the right word.

Yeah, courageous.

Yeah, exactly.

That's a courageous thing to do.

Talk about that cause I'm fascinated by somebody who would leave a decent job, quote unquote, and write a book.

- Yeah, I mean, I still look back on that and I'm like.

(chuckling) why did everyone let me do that?

(laughing) Why was that allowed?

My parents specifically were, I mean, my mom was really worried about health insurance at first, as moms should be, in fact my dad is a writer.

Both he and my mom were both so supportive of this move because I'd moved to New York city a few years before to write.

I did my MFA at The New School.

I specialized in non-fiction.

And then I was also, while I was working in publishing, still doing the whole publishing thing, of course, but freelancing and ghost writing and reviewing books.

And that for me, was necessary to have that creative outlet.

And so once, two years hit, when I was in publishing, I got promoted to be an assistant editor.

So went from editorial assistant to assistant editor.

And of course that word switch is very important because it meant I would get more responsibility.

I was assigned a book to work on by one of my bosses.

And that was a moment when I was supposed to be really, really excited.

I had been there for a while.

I talk in the book about how hard it is to move up, but I wasn't excited and that was one of those moments I took as a sign and I'm not like a, I'm not a particularly spiritual person, but there are multiple things that really kind of were popping up while I was there that more and more affected me, more and more bothered me, whether it was the diversity conversations or lack there of, or getting assigned this book that my heart just wasn't in.

I knew I couldn't work on it and work on my own stuff equally.

So that was really one of the things that pushed me out the door and yeah, I mean, I didn't have a full-time job.

I first worked at a cupcake shop, which is really hard.

And then I started teaching creative writing part-time to children and that was really wonderful for me.

And just like investing in myself for once felt really good.

- You mentioned that sort of the lack of diversity in the workplace and the book itself is an exploration of what it means to be the one black girl before there's the other black girl in a predominantly, overwhelmingly white industry, let alone office.

Can you unpack that a little bit for us, particularly in 2021, with the conversation we're having around race and inclusion in the United States today?

This seems to be particularly socially relevant.

- Yeah, and it's really wild because I wrote this, I started writing this in 2019.

So this was before, of course, everything that happened last year and when I was editing last year, I was like, this is such a trip, I feel like.

I feel like I could have been writing this, well, I'm glad I wasn't writing it last year, because last year was such a mess.

But I had in mind at the time when I was writing it, though, thoughts about my own experiences, of course, working in publishing, but just working in workplaces in general as the black person, and really having to, one, feeling like I'm representing black people all the time, wherever I go.

And I felt this way as a teacher, too, when I was teaching creative writing, I felt like, you know, how many other black people does this person come into contact with a day?

Who knows and feeling like I am representing that, that black experience for people.

And depending on what setting, whether it's in publishing, whether it was when I was working through service, all of those things are things that I think about pretty often and other black people, especially now that this book is out in the world, they've thought about you.

And I think that that's a conversation I haven't really had before with other people, but I was also thinking about just all the ways in which I would have to sort of navigate how much of the world I consume, how much news I consume.

In 2016 or can't remember exactly which year, but I remember watching the video of Philando Castile being murdered on, I think I watched it on Facebook and then a couple hours later, I had to go work at, I worked at a pie shop as well before publishing and have to smile and be a happy person.

And just like, pretend that, that wasn't something in my mind.

And I wanted to get that across through Nella as the only black person at her workplace.

She doesn't really have anyone to process a lot of the emotions she's feeling from the news, or just from an unsavory interaction with an author or a coworker.

She's doing it on her own.

And so I think that that lens as a very specific one, and when I was writing, I definitely worried that I wasn't, I wanted to make sure I was representing it as clearly as I could, but I also know that such a very specific experience and a lot of it comes from, again, just my, my own kind of code switching, the thing I do very naturally and moving through the world and really just trying to fit into these spaces.

- So given the murder of George Floyd and the events of last summer and continuing to today, if you could go back to that pie shop as a worker, we've got this magical time machine, so you go forward or back in time, whatever it would be, would you act or react differently?

I mean, you gave a very good description of before, and that's very understandable, but with, with this new knowledge or this new understanding in America, that a lot of people have come to lately, what would you, who would you be in that position?

- That is such a good question.

That's one I've never been asked and I haven't really thought about it before.

You know, I'd like to think that I would have, I would have been a lot more vocal about my experiences.

I mean, the way I was processing it.

I mean, I did have a coworker when I was there, who I was able to talk a little bit about it with, but I think in that case, I might've either tried to call out and just taken some time to be, be at home and process rather than feeling like I had to go.

But also just feeling like I can, I can say it and talk about it because I do, I think you're right, I think, I do think last year really opened up a lot of conversations about just all of the, the baggage that people are carrying, moving through this country, seeing black people, one person at a time being murdered, shot down and nothing happening to the person who did it.

That can really wear on you and I think in that time, the conversation was different and I might've felt, I was also younger so that also plays a role in it too.

But yeah, I think I would've, I would've spoken up about it and maybe I would've brought it up with a few customers, and been like them asking how are you doing, well, not great.

I probably would have told the truth a little bit.

- Talk about your love of writing.

You mentioned that your father was a writer before you worked at the publishing house that became the basis for the publishing house in "The Other Black Girl."

It sounds like you've been in love with writing or have written for a long, long time, going back to childhood, I'm guessing, but tell us that story cause we're always interested in the formation of a writer, particularly one as good as you.

- Thank you.

Yeah, I've loved writing since I remember learning to write.

I had a Mickey Mouse diary as a first grader.

- [Wayne] (chuckling) I love it.

- My grievances were like my sister, my older sister annoying me.

Like that was my main thing (all laughing) to kvetch about, but in addition to that, I had wrote stories on computer paper and I drew little illustrations to go with them.

One was called Aren't You Tired Yet?

It was about a girl who never wanted to go to sleep, like me at the time.

You can tell, I put myself in a lot of my writing.

(laughing) And so yeah, I would, I'd write these stories and notebooks, superhero stories, scary stories.

I was a big "Goosebumps" fan.

It was one of my favorite series as a kid.

- [Wayne] Yeah, it's a great series, of course, yeah.

- [Zikaya] So good, so good.

Especially the "Give Yourself Goosebumps," the Choose Your Own Adventure line and so I love that.

And I think that also influenced me too, in the sense of like, feeling like I had control over where the story went, choosing that ending.

So I loved writing as a kid.

And then when I was a little older, I entered this writing contest American Girl Magazine had which sadly American Girl Magazine's no longer in print, but it was just like, I think and it was the same owner, I think, as the people who own the American Girl doll line, but this magazine was for kids and it was about, it had recipes.

It had stories, it had an advice column for young people.

And they also had contests and there was a one contest they had where there was a picture, an illustration and they asked for readers to write a story accompanying it.

And my dad says that I did this without telling him and I entered without telling him.

I actually don't remember that part, but I guess I did.

And it won and it was published in the magazine.

And then I also have like these little books actually in the bookshelf behind me and I was like 12.

And for me, as someone who wasn't, I mean, I was a little extroverted, but I really liked writing.

I really liked reading and I wasn't that confident.

And I think for me, that really skyrocketed my confidence in my writing as a young person.

- So I have to ask this, I have in a file cabinet here and elsewhere, some of my early writings and occasionally when I have nothing to do, which is only occasionally I will go back and look at those.

And some of my, it's so embarrassing, so horrible.

Obviously I never could have become a poet but I learned something going back at that early writing, have you kept your early writings, the Mickey Mouse scrapbook, the other things you're talking about and do you ever look at them again and what do you think when you do, if you do?

- Yeah, you know, I don't know where that Disney diary, that Mickey Mouse diary is.

I'm actually very sad now, (laughing) that I don't know where it is.

(laughing) But I, yeah, I mean, have that American Girl story and I haven't read it actually in a little while, but I did reach out to them a couple months ago just to be like, hey, you were partly responsible for this book because I felt like they gave me that space to really, I mean, just do a creative thing I'd never done before in that way.

But, but yeah, I mean, I think the thing that I really am interested in when I do find the little bits of my writing are the kinds of characters I'm drawn to.

I'm really into, I mean, just when I was younger, I was writing a lot about young people processing the world.

I mean, that's very, I feel like that's a very oo-la-la.

That's not actually what I was thinking when I was writing it.

(interviewers both laughing) But people, these three ordinary girls who also happened to have super powers, this guy who finds this boy who finds this weird thing in his closet, and it's moving very much inspired by "Goosebumps," all of those things were, were things that I was excited about writing.

And I think, I mean, I also cringe at some parts of it, all the adjectives I would use, but it's also really humbling too.

It's just like looking at an old yearbook of your own work.

- As Stephen King said, "The road to hell is paved with adverbs."

- (laughing) Yes.

- Zakiya, one of the reviewers, Beth Ann Patrick and the NPR focused on the, or she highlighted the aspects of the book that are in exploration of the choice between success and acceptance.

And I wonder if you could elaborate on that a little bit for us.

- Yeah, yeah.

I really, when I was writing these characters, each of these characters, the four black women in this book are pieces of me in different ways.

Nella is the one that's the most obviously connected to me, but Diana, Kendra Ray, Shawnee, all of them represent parts of me and also represents my own ideas that I've had about the ways in which we bring progress, whether or not we should just go through the motions, kind of say yes, be agreeable with the hopes that we can get to the top and then one day bring other people, other black people to the top as well, or into these spaces, which is one mind I had while I was working in publishing, it was like, this is really hard.

The pay is really awful and it feels like we're in 1950's mad men culture but in a lot of ways, not always, but in a lot of ways, but Toni Morrison could do it.

A lot of other black people have done this.

If I'm here, at least I can help other people come into these spaces.

And if I'm not here, who else is going to do that?

And that's something that as a young person, when I was writing, going back to your other questions, all right, when I was writing characters, my dad said the same thing in terms of writing black characters.

If you don't do this, who else will?

And it's kind of a sad way to look at it, but I also felt that responsibility.

And it's one that I enjoyed, I like taking on, but also it's one that could be at times frustrating.

Cause it's also like why me?

And that's the other side of it.

Of the characters in the book.

I won't give too much away, but that idea again of like, do I move up and keep going in the hopes that just saying yes and being agreeable will help?

Or do I say what's on my mind, force everyone to take me as I am, because if I don't put myself out there as I am, I'm just being someone I'm not.

And that's something that I think goes all the way back in history throughout all of the different evolutions of black thought, I still feel like it goes to the slave presentation, of whether or not you are an Uncle Tom, I think is the more extreme way of putting it, or if you are a radical.

Someone who was fighting against that, and yeah, I wanted to show just all of the ways in which we all, as black people, black women, we all have different opinions on that and different reasons for why we believe the things we do believe.

- You mentioned Tony Morrison and I'm guessing that's an author that you much admire.

Who was some of the others and why?

Who do you read?

Who do you look to for mentoring as it were?

- Yeah, I mean, I really love Stephen King.

- All right.

(laughing) He's my favorite author so you're good to go.

- He's so great.

- [Wayne] Isn't he?

He's amazing.

- I really, and I've gotten to know him in various settings.

I took a horror lit class in UNC Chapel Hill when I was in college.

And I remember watching the original, the "Carrie" movie with my dad when I was a teenager.

So I feel like I've gotten to see a lot of different sides of him while I've also been changing.

And I just admire, I was listening to this, I don't know if you heard that BBC interview that I think it was played over the weekend, but it was just talking about horror.

I can't remember what segment it was, but him talking about horror and the ways in which it really forces us, readers, audiences, to engage with those really dark parts of ourselves and that's of course, a big part of "The Other Black Girl," this darkness that we all have and all of the ranges of that.

So, I mean, I really admire him and of course, on writing, just so many good things.

I could go on.

I also think that, I loved "Kindred" by Octavia Butler.

I read that for the first time when I was in high school, the ways in which she takes genre, this trope of time-travel, which I've seen before, we've all seen before and can be a tired trope, honestly, but the way that she employs it in "Kindred" is just so smart and so audacious and so brave.

And I think all of her writing and just who she was as a black woman in this genre is remarkable of how much she was able to accomplish.

And then also Colson Whitehead.

I admire the ways in which all of his books are so different.

He is not tied to just one kind of book.

And I think as a young artist who was still figuring a lot of things out, I really respect and admire that.

- ZaKiya, we've only got about 45 seconds left here, but I wanted to ask you about your song list, your playlist, excuse me.

So you've got a playlist that accompanies the book.

What are some of the songs that are on it?

- Yeah, well "Savage," by Beyonce, Well, "Savage Remix" by Beyonce and Megan Three Stallion.

"The Beat Goes On" by Sonny and Cher, "Blue in Green" of course.

- [Jim] Did music play a role in writing the book?

- Yes, in a lot of ways.

I mean, it was, I'm a lit up big, listen to music while doing anything, person and especially writing.

It really improves my mood.

If I'm staying up late or going bed early or I'm sorry, waking up early, I will listen to jazz, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, all of that really helps me focus in those moments.

And then when I'm trying to get the deadline, it's like Beyonce, Madonna, like very intense pop.

Yes, and so definitely when I was writing these characters, it bled into those characters.

- Well, it is a phenomenal read.

People should get it and read it this summer on their vacation at the beach.

She's Zakiya Dalila Harris.

The book is "The Other Black Girl."

Thank you so much for being with us.

That is all the time we have this week but if you want to know more about "Story In The Public Square," you can find us on Facebook and Twitter or visit Pellcenter.org where you can always catch up on previous episodes.

He's Wayne, I'm Jim, asking you to join us again next time for more "Story In The Public Square."

(lively music)