Shelby Van Pelt with Karen Joy Fowler

We are delighted that Shelby Van Pelt, author of the New York Times bestseller and award winning Remarkably Bright Creatures, will be joining us on the Kepler's stage. Described as "an ultimately feel-good but deceptively sensitive debut" Remarkably Bright Creatures is a charming, witty and compulsively readable exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope that traces a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.

Shelby Van Pelt’s debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible. After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.

Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it’s too late.

Shelby Van Pelt will be in conversation with Karen Joy Fowler.

About the Authors
Shelby Van Pelt was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, and now lives in the suburbs of Chicago with her family. Remarkably Bright Creatures is her first novel.
Karen Joy Fowler is a novelist and short story writer. Her fourth novel, The Jane Austen Book Club, was a NY Times bestseller and her sixth, We are all completely beside ourselves, won the PEN/FAULKNER for fiction in 2013 and was shortlisted for the Man/Booker. Her most recent, Booth, was published in March of 2022. At present, she’s written seven novels, has seven grandchildren, and lives in Santa Cruz.

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Host or Publisher Kepler's Literary Foundation