Virtual Author Visit with Shelby Van Pelt

An Exploration of Friendship, Reckoning, and Hope with novelist Shelby Van Pelt

Join us as we chat with the author Shelby Van Pelt about her bestselling debut novel Remarkably Bright Creatures. Remarkably Bright Creatures is a luminous debut novel about a widow’s unlikely friendship with a giant Pacific octopus reluctantly residing at the local aquarium—and the truths she finally uncovers about her son’s disappearance 30 years ago. 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 the Puget Sound over 30 years ago.As she works, 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 tentacles for his human captors—until he forms an unlikely friendship with Tova. Shelby Van Pelt’s novel is an exploration of friendship and hope and a reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible. 

Shelby Van Pelt’s debut novel Remarkably Bright Creatures was published in the spring of 2022 and was an Instant New York Times bestseller. It has sold a million and a half copies. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, she’s now missing the mountains in the Chicago area with her husband and two children.

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