Catherine Dang: Focus on the Paragraph in Front of You
In this interview, author Catherine Dang discusses the shocking true story that helped inspire her new coming-of-age horror novel, What Hunger.
Catherine Dang is the author of the novels Nice Girls and What Hunger. A graduate of the University of Minnesota, she currently resides in Brooklyn. Follow her on Instagram.
In this interview, Catherine discusses the shocking true story that helped inspire her new coming-of-age horror novel, What Hunger, her hope for readers, and more.
Name: Catherine Dang
Literary agent: Eve Attermann & Gabriella Caballero (WME)
Book title: What Hunger
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Release date: August 12, 2025
Genre/category: Horror; coming of age; literary
Previous titles: Nice Girls
Elevator pitch: A haunting coming-of-age tale following the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, Ronny Nguyen, as she grapples with the weight of generational trauma while navigating the violent power of teenage girlhood, for fans of Jennifer’s Body and Little Fires Everywhere.
What prompted you to write this book?
In early 2020, I was trying to write my second thriller after I’d just sold my debut novel, Nice Girls. But I was creatively stuck. Then COVID hit, and I found myself hunkering down with my parents in their home in Minnesota.
It was a scary time, but I took solace in watching my mom cook and writing down her Vietnamese recipes. In case anything happened to us, I felt like I was at least preserving our family history. And for me, my family history is inherently tied to Vietnamese food (the world’s best cuisine, as dictated by me).
One day during COVID, my mom was chopping meat as we were gossiping about some celebrity news. Then my mom casually asked me, “Did I ever tell you the story about the Vietnamese cannibal?”
I was completely caught off-guard, especially since my mother hates violence, gore, and anything remotely scary.
But she was so straightforward as she told me this story she’d heard in her refugee camp in the Philippines:
Apparently, a crowded boat full of Vietnamese refugees had gotten wrecked during a storm. Only a few survivors had washed up onto a tiny, barren island in the Philippines. To stay alive, one survivor had killed the others and eaten their flesh. When the Filipino navy found the survivor, they’d apparently been so disgusted that they returned him to the Vietnamese Communists, who put the survivor away in a re-education camp until he died.
I had always wanted to write a horror novel, a coming-of-age story, and a tale that followed a Vietnamese American family. These were all separate book ideas that I planned to write further along my career.
But I was immediately hooked onto this idea of a Vietnamese cannibal. Except instead of a grown man, what if the cannibal was a Vietnamese-American teenager? Without realizing it, What Hunger became my chance to explore and flesh out all these different stories I’d wanted to tell.
I truly can’t thank my mom enough for randomly sharing the cannibal story with me. This book would not exist without her!
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
I’d say it took roughly five years from idea to publication.
I was inspired by my mom to write What Hunger in 2020 during the early days of the pandemic. COVID made time feel foggy as I struggled through the writing process. I moved to New York City in October 2022 and soon finished the first draft. In April 2023, my longtime agent, Eve, added a co-agent to our team, Gaby, who had a strong eye for horror novels. I spent the next six months working on more edits to the manuscript.
Then on October 13, 2023 (conveniently Friday the 13th), we held the auction for What Hunger. We soon sold the novel to my editor, Olivia Taylor Smith, at Simon & Schuster. Now the book is set for publication on August 12, 2025.
A couple side characters and subplots were removed, but for the most part, What Hunger’s core story of a teenage cannibal has remained the same.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
When my debut novel, Nice Girls, first got published back in 2021, all of my book events were done online, including my launch party. But with What Hunger, I’ll be launching my book at in-person events. I’ve never met my own readers at a book event before, so this’ll be a completely new experience for me. I’m both wary yet excited about it.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
Well, I naively thought writing my second book would be easier. I figured if I could write one book, then I could write another.
But I had a terrible case of Imposter Syndrome. My debut novel, Nice Girls, had a polarizing reception among readers when it first came out in 2021. I think the edginess and grim societal exploration of Nice Girls was ahead of its time—but I do think it was published during a very politically fraught era of COVID.
Still, I took the polarizing reception to heart. I thought it somehow meant I was a bad writer. Even as I chipped away at What Hunger, I constantly felt like I’d never publish again. I thought my writing career would start and end with Nice Girls.
Writing What Hunger was a much harder experience than I had ever expected. But my writing grew stronger from it. I suppose I did, too. When What Hunger gets published, I’m going to celebrate the hell out of it.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
I’m simple: I love it when art makes me feel, both deeply and vividly. It doesn’t matter what emotion. If What Hunger can spark a visceral feeling in one of my readers, then I consider that to be a success.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Focus on the paragraph in front of you. Finish it. Don’t think about all the other pages and chapters you have left to write because that’s just overwhelming.
A book is built word by word. No matter how long it takes, don’t stop building.
