>> Megan Labrise: Thank you 
all so much for being here.
Thank you to the National
Endowment for the Arts for
sponsoring the Understanding
Stage.
And thank you, thank you,
thank you to these two
remarkable authors for sharing
their time and talent with us
today.
To my immediate left, we have
Shelby Van Pelt, author of
"Remarkably Bright Creatures."
[Applause]
You may have heard of it,
instant bestseller New York
Times. Also, Read with Jenna
pick.
And to my far left, we have the
magnificent Henry Hoke, author
[Applause]
of "Open Throat" a book I'm sure
you've all been hearing a lot
about as well.
So this is the panel,
Animals Talk to Me. If you're
here for George Saunders,
I believe he starts at 5:15.
It's not in this room.
[Laughing]
Is this anybody's first book
festival?
Okay. Is this anybody's first
panel today?
All right. All right.
Show them a little love.
[Applause]
Okay, welcome.
Welcome. What you need to know
is we are going to talk for
about 35, 45 minutes.
And at the end, there will be a
question and answer portion of
our program. We will be
delighted to entertain any
questions you have up at either
of these two microphones. At that
time, I'll give the high sign.
I'll give you a little time to
prepare a question in our world
ends in a question mark.
If you are tempted for one
moment to get up to that
microphone and say, this is more
of a comment, think of how you
might rephrase your thought.
[Laughing]
Now, without further ado,
Shelby Henry, let's get into it.
Would you please,
each of you, I'll let you
choose who goes first,
introduce your animal narrator.
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
He is a giant Pacific octopus
named Marcellus.
An early draft of the book,
I actually had the very first
words of the book as my name is
Marcellus. And then I read some
handout at a writing workshop
that said, "Never have the first
line of your book be,
'My name is X, Y, Z.'"
So I changed the first line.
But he introduces himself to
the reader in that very first
page. He is in captivity in a
small town aquarium in the
Pacific Northwest.
He is nearing the natural end
of his life, which is about 4 to
5 years for a giant Pacific
octopus, which seems tragically
short for such an intelligent
type of animal.
But yeah, he's cranky.
He has a thousand hot takes
about everything going 
on around him. Yeah.
>> Henry Hoke:
And my narrator protagonist.
The whole book is a monologue
by a mountain lion living in
Griffith Park, just right on
the edge of Los Angeles proper.
And they have a name that
humans can't say that was given
to them by their mother. But
a teen witch who appears
later in the book designates my
cat, Hekate, which is her
pronunciation of the goddess
Hecate.
And that really feels right to
my lion at that point, this
goddess figure.
So Hecate is what I call my cat
and they're going through some
things in the book.
>> Megan Labrise:
So for the purposes of today's
conversation, may we go forth
with Hecate?
>> Henry Hoke:
Let's do it.
>> Megan Labrise:
Okay, let's do it.
Okay, so I already know that
Shelby gets this question a lot
because we had the pleasure 
of doing an event for
the National Library Service
earlier this summer.
They provide free audio and
Braille books for readers.
So shout out to the National
Library Service.
Thanks for having us.
[Applause]
So I know this is a 
question Shelby gets a
lot. And Henry, I imagine you
get a form of this question as
well. So let's start with you,
if you wouldn't mind.
And it is what compelled you to
want to write from the
perspective of a mountain lion?
>> Henry Hoke:
Yeah. Want is an interesting...
[Laughing]
Yeah, maybe I needed to 
get outside of a human
voice I think especially to
write about Los Angeles and to
write about my time 
in Los Angeles.
I didn't feel so much 
myself in L.A.
Maybe I didn't feel very human.
And I was inspired by a real
mountain lion.
P-22 was the human designation
for Puma 22, who lived in the
Hollywood Hills and became kind
of a local celebrity.
And knowing that that was a
presence right around where I
lived. I lived near Griffith
Park in Los Feliz, which is a
neighborhood, it always 
haunted me.
And it was a figure I thought
was like incredibly like an
incredible vessel for like,
understanding what L.A.
was and is the apocalyptic and
the urbanity, the
encroachment of urbanity. All
those things
I think it became a celebrity
for that in general and urban
wildlife. But for me it was
like, well, this might help me
express all the things I want
to capture and contain and
navigate about my 11 years in
Los Angeles and everyone I was
surrounded by struggles and
conflicts and things that didn't
make sense. I was like, 
well, that's the voice.
That's the way in. Yeah.
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
I saw a YouTube video about an
octopus and thought it would be
really cool to write that
octopus' voice.
I mean, I wish I had a 
better origin story.
You know, I'm a person who I
always give my cats a voice.
You know, they are talking
to me in my head.
So maybe it wasn't that 
much of a stretch for me.
You know, that's sort 
of the genesis of it.
But it quickly became something
more than that.
I mean, it sort of started out
as this fun and games, but my
human main character has a very
difficult time relating to other
humans. And in order to get her
to break through some of her
barriers and kind of access her
own vulnerability, I don't think
it could have been anything
other than an animal that was
just what she needed 
at that time.
And I feel like, you know,
particularly I wrote a lot of
this during Covid.
I feel like a lot of people
kind of relate to that
sentiment, that sometimes a
non-human companion can be so
much less judgmental than the
other humans that were around
and so much more accepting
of meeting us kind 
of where we are.
>> Megan Labrise:
Okay, let's dig in to process in
place, because in both of your
answers, you gave kind of the
tendrils of what I'm going to be
pressing on here.
Shelby, let's start with you.
Your book is set in the 
Pacific Northwest.
What's your personal
relationship to the Pacific
Northwest and what was your
proximity to the Pacific
Northwest when you were 
writing the book?
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
I grew up there. It'll always be
home to me. When I created this
giant Pacific Octopus character,
I knew that I was going to set
it there because I wanted him to
be like 20ft from his home.
I think it would have not
worked as well if he had been
across the country somewhere. I
wanted it to really have that
proximity. And, you know, I
have moved all over the country
since I left for college at 18.
I have always kind of wanted to
move back to the Pacific
Northwest, but it just kind of
hasn't ever been in the cards.
So I think for me, it was a way
of reconnecting with my roots.
Absolutely. And then you throw
in the pandemic layer where it
was a time that I 
couldn't go home.
And it was very comforting to
me in my own homesickness to be
able to kind of lose myself in
this story that I was writing.
>> Megan Labrise:
Thank you.
>> Henry Hoke: Yeah. Place?
>> Megan Labrise:
You mentioned you lived in L.A.
>> Henry Hoke: Yeah, I did.
>> Megan Labrise: In L.A. When 
you were writing this book.
>> Henry Hoke:
For my sins, I lived in L.A.
I couldn't write this 
book until I'd left.
I moved back to... I'm from
Charlottesville, Virginia.
I grew up around here a lot.
Shout out, you know?
And right after this book, I
wrote a memoir about Charles
Hill Virginia called "Sticker,"
which came out last year.
But this book was my processing
of the time I spent in L.A.
I went to grad school 
there at Cal Arts.
[Laughing]
Hold for applause.
So I went to Cal Arts and
then just stayed.
And I was there for 11 years
and it flew by.
It was dreamlike. It was
strange. There weren't seasons,
but there were fire seasons and
there were earthquakes and there
was a drought, you know, that
was very prolonged.
And these sort of things were
very made time shift.
And I think we've all
experienced that with Covid
and getting through it that
just time warps and we lose time
and we lose years and we spend
time trying to process what's
happening to us as it's
happening. And all of that was
went into the book, but I had
to be back in Brooklyn.
I moved back to New York City,
where I lived before and was
just hitting the winter hit and
I was like, "Oh, I want to be
somewhere in my mind that
is hot and dry and strange."
And so L.A. Was the move.
And then I found the 
voice and and visited it.
>> Megan Labrise:
Let's talk about voice then.
And one thing that's really
interesting about both of these
animal narrators is they kind
of they make the mundane strange
again. They make the
incongruous incongruous.
They give us a fresh
perspective. And it actually
gave me a fresh perspective on
setting up this question,
because I do want to ask you
both about the questions you
asked yourselves in order to
hone your narrators voices.
But before we do that, I
thought, especially for people,
this is your first book event
of all time.
Maybe it's a little esoteric
when we talk about voice.
It's something I take for
granted in my job all the time.
"Oh, it's so voicey. 
I love the voice."
But, you know, what are 
we talking about when
we talk about voice in a novel?
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
I mean, I feel like for
Marcellus the octopus, you
know, there's one level of
voice where it's just, you know,
his tone, his way of
speaking, the words he chooses
to use. But I think
with both of our books on
another level, it's about
writing a creature whose world
is not only different from
ours, but is also a lot smaller
than ours, very, very compact.
The range of experience that
these creatures have and the
things that you mentioned, the
mundane, sort of their daily
routines and activities, they
just live in a much more compact
space. And so I think that
affects, you know, the words
that they use, the way that
they speak, the way that they
refer to things, what they do
and don't know about what might
be beyond that small space that
they're in, which, of course, we
as the reader and the 
writer know.
>> Henry Hoke:
Yeah, I love that.
I think that's very true.
I wrote at one point for
something different.
I wrote my helium voice
is my real voice.
And I've been thinking
about that because I'm
imagining my friend Catherine
Lacey talks about narrowing
focus as like, one of the only
ways you can write book length
anything is you can't write
everything, or at least that's
not the move anymore.
But like to really narrow that
focus, I think about
squeezing like a balloon
or inhaling the helium and
tightening. And that really is
it's a smaller it's a narrower
focus needs that we struggle
with care and with gender
identity and with scarcity,
which my line ends up hearing,
is scarcity like a place we
live in scarcity, those things
can be much more visceral and
specific with an animal who is
either being fed or having to
go get their own food.
And I love Marcellus' push pull
of like, I'm not so crazy about
what I'm being fed. So let's
go.
Let's go get something better.
And Hecate is like very
hungry and very drought stricken
and ashamed of what like 
they have to kill.
So just that it really was
like the voice came out in the
necessity and in the 
narrowing for me.
And then it was just my voice.
>> Megan Labrise:
For those of you who haven't had
the pleasure of reading these
novels yet, Hecate does have
to pursue their own food.
But Marcellus is both fed and
also find some creative ways to
get some more delectable
treasures throughout the book.
I'd say that's fair.
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
He's a big boy.
[Laughing]
>> Megan Labrise:
Okay, take me out of this
physically when we're talking
about a giant Pacific octopus.
Do you have some rough
dimensions for us?
>> Shelby Van Pelt: Marcellus 
is about 50 pounds which is
big for a captive octopus.
His mantle, which is sort of
the bulbous part, is about
the size of a basketball.
And I mean, this came up when
we were editing because it's
like they have to handle him
and pick him up like, is this
possible? The things that I
never thought I would 
have to Google, but.
[Laughing]
>> Megan Labrise:
What are the specs on Hecate?
>> Henry Hoke:
Yeah, Hecate's, you know, the
smaller of the big cats.
So we're talking I don't know.
I didn't do a lot of
dimensional research.
>> Megan Labrise: Ballpark it.
>> Henry Hoke: 
Because again, I don't have a
moment where we're outside of
the cat's perspective, you know,
like they get to see their own
reflection once or twice and
confront that and what is that?
But in general, I'm inside of it.
So I thought about exactly
what's in front of it.
You know, I thought about the
dimensions of the paws.
I mean, I feel like Hecate and I
are probably about the same
length, about six feet,
probably similar, you know,
similar skinniness on 
our weight level.
So I just felt a lot of that
embodiment in doing so.
Like in just being inside of
the cat, I thought about only
what I could experience and the
paws and everything else. Yeah.
>> Megan Labrise:
How did you define
the limitations of their
capabilities? Did you try to
hew close to what an animal of
this ilk would be capable of
or did you take full fictional
license and run with it?
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
Go for it.
>> Henry Hoke: Yeah.
I mean, again, even just on the
research level, I only did what
was poetically helpful to me.
And then I went where 
I felt like going.
I think that obviously for both
of us, we play with language and
with the idea of like having
the capacity for language.
I think that there is a chance
that like an octopus has
somewhat of a level of
cognizance that maybe a big cat
doesn't. But, you know, working
with a smarter animal.
But I think but for me, it was
like I just went with like I had
fun with the language and with
the abilities and yearnings of a
cat. But it's very much not
like accurate.
You know, it's fiction.
Like it's the most fiction you
can do, I think.
And that's what I loved about
writing it. Yeah.
>> Shelby Van Pelt: Yeah.
I mean, it almost has to be in
order to be any fun at all,
right? You have to
suspend some disbelief when
you're coming into a 
book like this.
I think for me, the line was
everything that Marcellus is
doing is physically possible.
If you were to observe an
octopus, they really can
escape through a hole that 
size in their tank.
You know, they really can move
about in this way and that and
manipulate the objects 
around them.
Obviously, everything that's
happening in his head is pure
fiction, as far as I know.
You know, cats can't understand
human language to the extent
that Hecate does. Octopuses
can't read as far as we know.
But, you know, these are the
things that you have to do in
order to make an entertaining 
story.
So but for me, it was very much
that physical versus 
narrative line.
>> Megan Labrise: Do you have 
any fun animal facts for us
so we might win at trivia the
next time we go?
[Laughing]
>> Henry Hoke:
Well, this is not about cats,
but my big cat in real
life, the P-22 who has inspired
by Hecate is her own cat.
But Hecate and P-22 did eat
a koala at the Los Angeles Zoo
at one point. So spoiler in
the book that happens but in
real life that happened. Broken
in the enclosure,
ate a koala, dipped.
The zookeepers were pretty
devastated because they feel
fondly for urban wildlife and p
22 and specifically but they
were like a wish you know, had
enough food, didn't have to come
and kill our koala. In the book
I named the koala.
So I make it even more tragic.
But
[Laughing]
had to do it to him.
But I found out that koalas
are actually incredibly
unpleasant. They're not like
cuddly bears because over half
the population have chlamydia.
Like it's just like runs
rampant in the koala population.
Anyway, so a little chlamydia
for your trivia.
[Laughing]
But I was like, yeah, that's 
why they're always
really like feral and chasing
each other and upset. Like I
think if you witnessed them,
they're not the cute
quality you think.
And I love that I love that
about all animals is like and
even across like gender and
sexuality like the things that
we project onto animals, alpha
wolf all this stuff like it
doesn't actually relate to real
animal things.
And when you dive into it, you
see the beautiful, bizarre
spectrum of animal life. And so
 I love things like that. Yeah.
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
I've loved learning about otters
and what jerks they are.
I just think that's so funny in
a similar way, you know, they're
so cute, but like, man, 
they can really they can do
some mean stuff to each other.
I would invite you to go down
the octopus rabbit hole on the
internet because there are 
so many fun facts out there
that I couldn't name 
them all today.
There was an octopus that
recently came across my newsfeed
who got annoyed at a bright
light and shot water at it and
broke it and like shut down
power to the whole aquarium.
And I'm just like, you know, go
for it, buddy.
[Laughing]
>> Megan Labrise:
Belgian American psychotherapist
Esther Perel. I know, right?
No, I saw a quote attributed 
to her today.
And it was "The pandemic left us
missing intimacy and play."
I think we've already spoken to
the intimacy aspect in your
answers about writing during
the pandemic, and I'd love to
talk about that more. But
first, I'd like to talk about
play. You know, among the other
ways you regard writing,
is it play for you?
Is it playful?
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
For me? Absolutely.
Well, you know, sometimes. You
know, I will say that writing
Marcellus's point of view
chapters was really fun.
It was a little bit less work
than writing the human chapters.
And there, you know, there are
only I think it's only something
like 50 pages of the whole book
that is actually from his
perspective. But you know, when
I think back to my time of
writing, like that's what I
think of as being on my laptop,
like having fun with
this character.
So absolutely for me.
>> Henry Hoke:
Yeah. I mean, this was the most
fun I've ever had writing a
book. They haven't always been
easy for me,
books. It's what I do,
so. But I do think, yeah, it
was play until it was suddenly
like, I guess like, like you're
playing as a kid and then like,
I don't know, I'm from the
south. Sometimes there were
tornado warning sirens or
something or like you see the
sky start to change, you know,
it's about to pour and maybe
there's thunder. I think you
get to a point in play or
somebody gets hurt a little bit
or like you get a cut and now
you're bleeding. And what does
that mean?
Like, that's what it felt like
this book. I'd be playing from
like my sort of meditative space
I'd get into and then write the
day of the cat's life and the
observations and what it would
encounter and what it would
endure. And then it would get
to this point where I was like,
Oh, this is like I'm going
through something, my cat's
going through something, I'm
putting it through something,
you know? And the play suddenly
became very serious.
And I think that's why I was
like, I still am very compelled
to look over this book and
experience it again as a reader,
even. Because I kept surprising
myself with how deep I'd get
into pretty serious, upsetting
or things that would resonate
with me. I'd be like, that's
exactly how I feel.
But that came out of a cat
talking about eating a bat or
something, you know. So,
like that level of
like, I love play when it
cascades into something much
more. And I think that's,
that's what I aspire to every
time I write, I guess, yeah.
>> Megan Labrise:
What was the revision process
like and what was working with
your editor like?
>> Henry Hoke:
All right, I'll start. So, yeah,
the revision process. I wrote
this very sharply and succinctly.
I sort of there wasn't a lot
cut from it, which is pretty
wild because it's very short.
It's unpunctuated and it's
18,000 words.
So just shout out to if you
write short books, you're my
people, I love you. There is a
place for them.
But in writing the short
book I didn't think of, there
was like a point
where I got outside of the
animal voice where I chose
something different for like a
twist. It wasn't a major 
part of it
as you've threaded your
narrative voice with the octopus
voice. But that just had to go.
I was like, no, like this has
to be pure monologue.
And so that was like the
the crafting it for a draft.
And then when I sent it to my
agent who at the time wasn't my
agent, but, you know, 
he loved the book.
He was just like, what did you
just give me?
Like, what are you doing?
And it's very sweet way or
like, I don't know where this
fits in anything. And then
eventually, like his wife told
him, this is amazing, represent
this person or whatever.
So like so shout out to her.
But you know, he woke up
to the possibilities of just
sending it out as is.
And so really the manuscript
was what I drafted that we sold.
And my editor, Jackson Howard
at MCD, FSG, did a wonderful job
of opening me up to create more
around what I already had the
leanness of it, to find moments
of reverie, to interrupt what I
was saying, sort of that play
into plot, like where the plot
would get really heavy and
intense and roller coaster.
He would let me step outside of
that a little bit and sort of
inspired me and prompted me to
create a little more and a
little more reflection and
weaving memories and reverie,
which, you know, because I had
such a feral like churning plot
and visceral encounters of L.A.
And hunger and violence, that
was really I was so grateful
because there's nothing better
than an editor who, like,
excites you to write more in a
voice like that was just so cool.
Instead of just like, okay,
this didn't work.
Cut this, you know, change that
blue to red, whatever.
Yeah. So that was an absolute
joy to work on
new imaginings in editing. Yeah.
>> Megan Labrise:
I actually heard your editor say
that he received an email from
your agent and the subject line
was "Queer Mountain Lion?"
[Laughing]
And he said, your editor said
it was as if somebody had
invented an artificial
intelligence program that just
banged out a perfect pitch for me.
>> Henry Hoke: Yes.
Yeah, we were meant to be. Yeah.
>> Shelby Van Pelt: I need 
you to teach me your ways.
I think I wrote about 250,000
words of a book that is just
under 100in its final form,
which is very typical length.
Yeah. I had no idea what I was doing.
I still have no idea what I was doing.
I had so many cul de sacs, we
call them where you just go down
this path and it just ends at a
big fat pretty nothing that you
then have to cut because
apparently all of the book has
to advance the plot.
[Laughing]
No, my editor was fantastic.
It was probably a little bit
more of a traditional,
"Hey, let's see where 
we can pare some of
this back and just be a little
bit leaner and more efficient.
There was a big question
of how much Marcellus should be
in the book and how much
readers would sort of be willing
to accept. And, you know, I
think maybe we should have put
more, I don't know. But I think...
[Applause]
I did have a lot of 
Marcellus sections that
were literally just him
rambling.
And so we had kind of a rule
that if these sections were
going to be in there, they had
to offer something plot wise
or advance some little nugget
of knowledge toward the solving
of this mystery.
And so I had to kind of tweak
some of them a little bit so
that they were relevant 
and not just fun.
>> Megan Labrise:
So and just to be really clear,
so there's a juxtaposition
between these you can't use
first person, first creature
point of view, first creature
point of view sections with a
third person omniscient in
Shelby's novel.
And as Henry mentioned, he
mentioned the word monologue.
We get Hecate's first creature
narration as well.
And it was interesting to hear
that you both considered maybe
different balances of that
through this process.
Hmm. What next? Do you have any
questions for one another?
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
It's gratifying.
Like, you know, just what I was
just describing about how much
will readers accept, you know,
in terms of the suspension of
disbelief and the monologuing
from an animal.
I just I have so much respect.
I'm like, I think we were
worried that we were doing too
much and then you went and did
a whole book.
So it's like, you know, I just
love it when someone else can
kind of take it and like, I'm
going to do even more and even
weirder, like, yes.
[Laughing]
>> Henry Hoke:
Yeah, yeah.
And please best us, please go
forth and destroy our
example. There's probably as
much word count of Marcellus as
there is of Hecate. I think
we're in a balance of like...
Yeah, especially with what you cut.
Yeah, I guess I wanted to just
say, I mean, it was such a joy
to read your book and
just, I've just met you.
But I thought so much
about what you do with I think
it's been hinted at enough that
I can talk about it where
Marcellus is like helping along
a story that is like being
uncovered, a mystery between
two characters and there's more
characters involved, but really
these two characters.
And I just thought it was so
wonderful that the animal
becomes aligned with the
author almost. Like the way that
you want to resolve a story
that you want to... that were
about... they're about 
to miss each other.
You know, it's like the things
that we all like, right?
We're watching the movie, We're
reading the book.
We're like, "Oh, if only," you
know, like those horrible
moments where people don't
connect or things don't quite
happen and the animal stands in
for that and brings that in was
so amazing to me because I
thought of you.
I guess I felt you as the 
writer, as the author
who wants to like, have this
plot be something beautiful and
heartwarming. And the octopus
comes through to do that.
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
Yeah. I mean, he's
definitely a bit of a device in
that way. I mean, he just has
more he's more observant than
humans. He has more
knowledge than humans.
He's able to just tie things
together and without I guess I
don't want to be spoilery. But,
you know, take sort of things
that you've been suspecting
anyway and tell them to you
plainly, okay, this is 
what's happening.
This is what we're going to do.
This is what we're trying to do
is help these humans who are
just bumbling and idiotic,
figure themselves out and help
themselves out. You know,
one of the things that I enjoyed
most about writing Marcellus
was he's very condescending, but
he also, I think, holds humans
to a higher standard than we
sometimes hold ourselves.
You know, he really wants them
to be better people than they
are being in their, you know,
kind of early book forms.
>> Henry Hoke: Yeah. And don't 
we want that as writers?
You know, are we yearning for that?
Right. Like Hecate does all 
the things I can't do, says
all the things I can't say, you know.
>> Megan Labrise:
Unfortunately, it's my job to
point out to you that your
questions to one another were
in the form of a compliment.
[Laughing]
>> Henry Hoke: We will accept
questions in the form of compliments.
>> Megan Labrise:
We will accept questions in the
form of a compliment.
>> Henry Hoke: I don't know 
who I trust to do that.
I don't trust myself to do that.
>> Megan Labrise:
The next question I have for
both of you is what is your
proudest achievement craft wise
with this book?
What made your heart sing?
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
I think one of my, well, again,
this is a little bit of a
spoiler, but the very first
line, the thing that Marsellus
says is, "De oh gosh, I didn't
even remember what it is, what
day he's on, 1299, maybe."
>> Megan Labrise:
1299.
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
1299 of his captivity.
And that was one of the
very first lines that I wrote.
I mean, that has not
really changed.
Maybe the number changed,
but I always knew that I wanted
there to be a day one of my
freedom and I didn't know much
about where the plot was
going to go. But I kind of had
that line in my head and I knew
that I wanted to be able to use
it somehow. And I just I really
like those two lines together.
>> Henry Hoke:
For me, it's that...
My significant will tell you some
days I'm very much feeling
myself as a writer like I'm on
my laptop and I'm just like,
shut the laptop. I'm like, lunchtime,
I nailed it, like I'm the greatest.
I have to have that, I think.
And those things are these
lines that I just am like,
that's like that felt like it
came from somewhere else.
That's like a t-shirt
that's like and there are
t-shirts now of like some of my
lines and like hats and like
people are doing things like
that, you know?
Ron Charles The Washington Post
called me the furry Jenny Holzer
or like called a furry Jenny
Holzer, not like furries as the
identity, but like fuzzy,
furred Jenny Holzer.
And I was like, "That's it." So
so when I found those lines, I
was like, this says more than I
can even think in just something
that came out of me textually
those lines are really powerful
for me. And that's
the high I get from looking
 over the book. Yeah.
>> Megan Labrise:
Ron Charles doesn't rave often.
He doesn't. And that was quite
a beautiful review.
>> Henry Hoke:
Shout out to Ron.
>> Megan Labrise: You both have
 had some beautiful reviews.
Do you read your reviews?
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
Well. So the very first trade
review I got actually was not
super positive.
I won't say the publication
but their beef was that
they thought it was too
unbelievable.
And I was like, okay, there's
an octopus on the cover,
you open it up and the very
first line is an octopus
introducing itself to you.
Like, maybe this is not the
book for you.
I mean, it's not the book for
everybody. But like, if you
didn't realize you were going
to have to suspend disbelief,
like, I don't know how to help you.
>> Henry Hoke:
That is key, I think is that
like there's a lot of people
that now everybody reviews and
it's wonderful, you know, it's
awesome. So many people read
books and more should and if
that... if to do that, it means
that you have to assess it,
like if you can't read a book
unless you're going to put a
thing on Goodreads, you know,
goddess, bless you, that's fine.
But I think that not
every reviewer is going to be
your people and it's going to
connect with your book on any
level that you wrote it.
And so I do sometimes read reviews.
I can't help but read them
really nice ones, obviously, and
even some nice ones, I'm like,
yeah, like great.
But, you know, it's like if a
person connects with your book
and expresses anything about
it, it's kind of a cool
exchange. But there is
something to...
There's a quality of writing 
and in reviewing.
And I think that...
when I really connect with the
writer, I'm excited and I'm open
to what they say. I think
otherwise I see people writing
reviews. I'm like, yeah, well,
they're not a writer, I respect
or care about. Like, what do
they have to say, you know?
So don't read your reviews.
Especially don't look at Goodreads ever
if you're an author, just
don't do it, please.
It will save your life and your
mind and your well-being.
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
I will say there's something
kind of funny, though, about
the negative reviews that are
like very long and detailed.
It's like, oh, you had a lot of
feelings and you took a long
time to do this. You couldn't
have hated that much.
I mean, it's just like, you
know, you stirred something in
someone that know, even if they
really took issue with the way
that you did some things or
didn't resonate with them.
Like. But you know, but
they took the time.
A lot of time.
>> Henry Hoke: Thank you
for your service, you know.
[Laughing]
>> Megan Labrise:
In the course of your answers I
realized that I failed to
introduce myself.
My name is Megan Labrise.
I'm the editor at large of
Kirkus Reviews,
a trade publication for books
and a past president of the 
National Book Critics Circle. Sorry.
I will say that, Shelby, that 
was not our review of you.
>> Shelby Van Pelt: No
it was not, absolutely not.
>> Megan Labrise:
It's not a Kirkus review.
>> Henry Hoke: Kirkus gave us 
both really great reviews,
you know. We're not going to
fight backstage.
This isn't duplicitous at all.
>> Megan Labrise: We're going 
to take it a little bit lighter.
Aside from the real life animals you
credit with inspiring these
books in part P-22 and the
YouTube Octopus. Who have been the most
influential animals in your life?
>> Shelby Van Pelt: I'm a cat 
person, so I've always had cats.
They are my writing buddies,
my constant companions.
I talk to them, in my mind
they talk back to me with their
facial expressions.
I know that they don't really.
But yeah, I think, you know,
especially when I was doing so
much of this drafting during
Covid, like it was just such a
lifesaver to have another being
that didn't need anything from
me and I realized that's not
entirely true.
Obviously they do need care,
but didn't need something from
me in the way that, like my
kids and my husband felt like
they needed something from me.
So yeah, I credit my cats.
>> Megan Labrise:
Follow up cats names.
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
One is named Sahana, the
other is named Luda short for
Luda kitty. My three-year-old
at the time named them.
>> Henry Hoke: Yeah, the 
book is also dedicated,
besides being dedicated to P
22, I dedicate it to Jane, who
was my cat when I was a tween,
and Jane was probably like...
Besides this, this book is
really just me and Jane.
That's it. Like the
bloodthirstiness, the actual
literal catness, that's Jane.
So Jane was...
Jane would kill everything.
She was indoor or outdoor,
you know, in this little wooded
neighborhood where I grew up.
And she'd just bring, you
know, squirrels, bats, you know,
what have you just bring them
to me as offerings.
And I say in the book for Jane,
who turned the pages because
Jane would often sleep on my
head or next to my head in my
bed after being bloodied by
prey all day.
But, you know, just what
she would do is when I would
read, she would come up and
like, I'd be turning the page
and she would bat it down like
she would like either help me
turn it or prevent me from
turning it.
And it actually did affect how
I read.
Sometimes I'm like, "Oh, okay,
okay Jane, you want me to stay
on this page a little longer?"
Like I miss something or like,
"Oh, yeah, yeah, keep going."
You know, a page turner for
Jane was any book in a way.
But so she's my real 
deep inspiration. Yeah.
>> Megan Labrise:
That is impressive. Yeah.
>> Henry Hoke: Oh, yeah. 
They can jump pretty high
these and bats like to go low.
Cats like to go... 
What the...
Oh, God, that sounds like
something.
Sounds like Michelle Obama. But
bats go low,
cats go high. Not too hard.
Heck, it gets a few in the book.
So that was Jane inspired.
We had a bats in our house so.
We didn't want them
there, but they were in our
house. Yeah.
They would come up through the
crawl space and
yeah. Yeah, it was quite a house.
There's a book about it called 
"Sticker."
[Laughs]
>> Megan Labrise:
So I too have a cat.
I have a dyspeptic 15-year-old
cat named Peanut
and we just introduced a
wiggly, wiggly six-month-old
mini bernedoodle puppy. And Peanut,
if you want to talk about
interspecies communication,
Peanut, let me know exactly how
she felt about that
the night I was taking care of
the house alone and I'd done all
the chores and put everything
away and fed both pets.
I went to lie down in my
beautifully made bed and it was
all wet. She had urinated all
the way through, into the
mattress and into the center of
the earth pretty much.
[Laughing]
>> Henry Hoke:
Pray for Peanut. Please
write Peanut the novel.
[Laughs]
>> Megan Labrise: Well, you 
two do inspire me very much.
You know.
>> Henry Hoke: Peanut by name,
peanut by action.
[Laughs]
>> Megan Labrise: So, Shelby, 
this was your first novel.
Would you have an animal
narrator again?
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
You know I would.
Probably not another
octopus.
And I do get a lot of people
ask, "Are you going to write a
sequel or a prequel?" And I
think that would be fun.
But I don't think that
I would want to write a
different octopus who wasn't Marsellus.
But like I said, I am totally
the kind of person who is
constantly giving things voices
in my head.
So that would seem a natural
fit at some point.
>> Megan Labrise: Henry, you
 write very different books.
All kinds of different books.
Would you write an animal
narrator again?
>> Henry Hoke:
That's kind of your answer. No.
I got to do something different
every time.
[Laughing]
This was my animal narrator. I
may do non-human narrators, but
that's exciting me right
now as I'm writing in the voice
of a lake right now, which is fun.
We'll see how that goes.
A little wiser, but also
adolescent.
>> Megan Labrise: I'm having a
hard time hearing a litlte bit.
>> Henry Hoke:
Oh, I'm sorry.
>> Megan Labrise:
No, it's not you. It's the echo.
>> Henry Hoke: Oh yeah.
>> Megan Labrise:
Echo, echo. All right.
So we're about ready to open it
up for questions.
Okay. Who has a question?
First timers, I still see you.
I remember who raised their hands.
>> Henry Hoke:
Come forth to the mics.
>> Megan Labrise:
All right. All right.
Now we're talking.
Okay, we're going to start
here, and then you are next.
>> Thanks. My question is for Shelby.
I thought it was so beautiful
how Marcellus helped all 
of the humans in your book.
And I really liked Tovar's
character, and I was wondering
if you could tell me a little
bit about what inspired her and
other than the really awesome
Octopus YouTube video, what sort
of inspired you to have
Marcellus be the one to help her?
>> Megan Labrise:
Also, what's your name?
>> Oh, sorry, I'm [inaudible] 
and I lived in Seattle
and I loved Giant Pacific Octopuses.
[Laughing]
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
Well, Tova is basically my
Swedish grandmother, and I
borrowed many, many aspects of
my grandmother's personality and
put them into Tova. Her sort of
stoicism, her difficulty in
dealing with emotions and
feelings and sort of constant
insistence that everything is
all right, which, like I also
struggle with. So, you know,
that was sort of a little bit of
a self-discovery journey for me
to write that character.
And yeah, I just think that,
you know, she is so surrounded
by people who want to fix her
and who want to help her and who
want, you know, they love her,
but she has a difficult time
receiving that love.
And with Marcellus, it's funny
because he is in some ways the
most judgmental character in
the whole book
just because he has so many
opinions about humans that are
often not complimentary.
But he really accepts Tova
sort of without judgment.
And I think that's what makes
her initially feel comfortable
in sort of opening up to him.
>> Thank you.
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
Great question.
>> Megan Labrise:
Please share your name if you'd
like to and your question.
>> Hi, my name is 
Janice Sypolt and
Shelby, you mentioned something
in one of your responses about
the editing process and how much
basically is kind of left on
the cutting room floor or the
writer's version of that.
And it just made me think of
the parallels with movies, you
know, movies, some movies do
extended versions or they have
their blooper cuts or whatever.
Does the writing world have
anything like that?
And this is for either author.
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
I feel like it sometimes you'll
get an extra chapter in like a
special edition of a book.
And I've always just assumed
that those things come from some
sort of cutting room floor.
I don't know. I mean, I save it
all in a folder thinking like,
maybe I'll use this for
another short story or a
different book someday.
>> Henry Hoke:
Yeah, I have my bone yard, which
is things I like, but that had
to be cut and didn't fit. I
don't know.
I teach my students, don't kill
your darlings, clone your
darlings. Like we live in an
age of bountiful and technological ability.
So just copy, paste it into
your bone yard and you'll find
it for something else. It
didn't work for this.
You love it, don't kill it.
Keep it somewhere.
>> Thank you.
>> Hi, my name is Alex.
Thank you both for being here.
My question is for Henry.
I read "Open Throat" and I loved
it, but I was really curious
because you both talked about
the playfulness of language
tonight. And I noticed that
with Hecate, he's pretty playful
with language, too. But I
thought it was interesting
because we know in instances
where Hecate calls L.A. he calls
it L.A., but it's 
E-L-L-A-Y, and then
we know things like the long
death, but we know it's the
highway, just things like that.
But I noticed in the very
beginning pages or early on that
the use of cuss words seems
really confident that Hecate
uses, and he didn't seem to
have any confusion about that.
So I was really curious about
what made that...
Maybe I was over reading it,
what made a conscious reason why
Hecate is so, why it's so easy...
>> Henry Hoke: Profane?
>> Yeah profanity and...
>> Henry Hoke: Because I am.
I'm very...
I've been restrained today 
but I was on
NPR and my mother was like,
"Don't cuss on NPR."
Don't say the F-bomb to Scott
Simon.
And I didn't and I'm very
proud of myself.
But yeah, Hecate is learning
language not only from later in
the book, an 18-year-old which
like Rich which in Los Angeles,
but also from hikers and a
unhoused population that they
live near a small tent group in
Griffith Park.
So like there's a lot of
profanity bouncing around in
this cat's head. So that was
never a question for me that,
you know, every measure of
those words would be just an
easy part of a contemporary Los
Angeles vocabulary.
And, you know. Yeah, and 
it was fun.
I think it feels cathartic for
the cat to grab those words and
throw them out there.
I can't write honestly without
profanity.
Does that answer your question?
>> Yes, it does.
>> Henry Hoke:
Thank you. Nice hat.
>> Hi, my name is Raya.
I am a fellow cat person.
I'm wearing a cheetah
shirt today.
And I have to say, I read
"Remarkably Bright Creatures,"
I loved it and I already put
open throat into my Amazon bin,
so I am. But I have a question
totally not about like writing,
writing, but instead listening.
So the way I access a lot of
books is through audiobooks.
And so I only listened to
"Remarkably Bright Creatures" and
I saw that "Open Throat" has an
audio book.
So I was wondering, how do you
pick the person who is going to
be your voices (inaudible) authors?
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
Well, I guess the short
answer for me anyway is you
don't get full control over that.
I mean, [inaudible] for me at my
publisher and I'm assuming you
have some version of this at
yours, they sort of gave a
list of here's some candidates
that we think would be good for
this role. Why don't you listen
to their samples?
You know, we want everyone 
to be happy.
Let's try to get someone that
you like and that we like and
that wants to participate.
I got very, very lucky with my
audiobook narrators.
Michael Urie plays Marcellus
the Octopus.
He is on the HBO show "Shrinking."
He's like the friend
and it's just he's so perfect.
I got very lucky, yeah.
>> Henry Hoke:
Yeah. Similarly, FSG gave me a
auditions by four readers, and
one of them I knew and he was
also just incredible at the
role. But I knew my signif
went to acting school with him
and he'd gotten friends of mine
jobs and stuff like that.
I was like, "Well, okay, well,
of course."
But also just he just nailed
the voice of it.
And only after I was like, "Yes,
this is the guy."
He like "Did Moby-Dick, too."
So I was like, all right, you
know, "Moby-Dick" "Open Throat."
We can hang, you know, 18k words
and then however much Melville
sought to give to
us. So, yeah, that was it.
I mean, it was really... so we
got very lucky, I think.
>> Thank you.
>> Hi, my name is Luke.
I'm a writer here in D.C. and I'm
actually facilitating a workshop
soon about writing animals for
trans writers.
And a question that really
motivates a lot of my work is
the ways we conceive of the
natural as a concept.
Whether we consider something
natural or unnatural in human
bodies or in more ecological
settings.
So something I wanted to ask
you, Henry, is Hecate is a
genderqueer animal and I wanted
to know your thoughts on the
ways queerness gives you access
to writing animals and also vice
versa. How animals gives you
access to writing queerness.
>> Henry Hoke:
That's a fantastic question.
That sounds like a fantastic
workshop.
I want to take it like if you
want me to say hi to you, let me
know, get in touch.
But yeah, that was the crux of
this for me.
I was like, well, I mean, when
I started writing the cat, I
didn't think like my agent
pitching this queer mountain
lion. I was like, "Well, I'm
writing the mountain lion.
I'm a queer person.
I'm going to write a queer
narrator." But seeing the
potential for the journey
through gender because this cat
is amab or whatever it is
grown up socialized like male,
but then becomes affirmed as
like a goddess later on.
And as she and there's a lot
of that cathartic and affirming
quality to the book. It came
really fluidly through this
narrative and I was so
surprised because I was like,
well, even if I had sought to
create that architecture of a
trans journey, the cat gave me
more ways to do that because it
was like it's already outside
of human sexuality.
It's already isolated. You
know, there was all this
projection on P-22 of like
eligible bachelor, like the Brad
Pitt of mountain lions, will
never mate.
I was like, do we all need to mate?
Like it was just like it was
really like...
So that was really fundamental
for me.
It was like, let's just change that.
Like, that's not the yearning
this cat is going to have.
This cat is going to have like
a queer crush and a tragedy in
its past. This cat is going to
be looking for something else to
affirm its existence. It's
going to be looking for revenge
beyond like mating.
It's going to be looking for
like, righteous expression.
And so those were the ways
those dovetailed for me.
And it was from within 
and from without.
And I was very grateful
for the voice for that.
That sounds I'm so excited. Cool.
>> Thank you so much.
>> Henry Hoke: I have a lot 
of fun with that. Yeah.
>> Thank you.
>> Yeah. Hello.
My name is M.M.
I often have an easier time
writing from non-human
perspectives, but there's this
one narrative that I've been
struggling with, I think,
because as I've gone on,
I felt like too close to the
narrator or realized that I'm
trying to, like, directly
translate experiences into that
kind of like other world, other
fresh perspective that you both
have spoken about.
I guess this is more for
Henry Hoke, because I haven't
read your book yet, sadly.
But do you kind of talked a
little about like a meditative
state and a flow state.
Did you ever translate directly
or were more like conscious of
like, this is something I've
experienced or like a snippet of
dialogue, particularly with
like the hikers that I'm going
to put in here or was it more
just like a subconscious stew
and was it like difficult going
from one to the next?
>> Henry Hoke:
Yeah, great question. And I
think an ongoing question,
right? I feel that the
meditative state was just that I
would meditate for 20 minutes
and then I would
meditate towards the natural
space that my cat was going to
find itself in. So I was like,
I'm in a cave right now because
the cat's wake up in a cave,
I'm in a thicket because the
cat's gonna wake up in a
thicket. I'm under a mansion,
whatever spoiler. But
there is this sense that
what I had to grab to really
get through it was overheard
dialogue, was things that 
I had said
there's lines that I spoke,
there's lines that I heard
people speak, there's
conversations I've had.
Almost everything in the book
is from a real thing in a way.
Like I didn't make up much.
I have so much. I had 11 years
in Los Angeles of the discourse,
right, to like everything I
didn't respond to on Twitter or
whatever. Like all of that was
the little morsels that got
me through the writing process.
So yeah, grabbing from that, I
think continuously grabbing
without maybe without an aim,
but with like it anchors you to
get through the writing, you
might find that your dialogue or
your character will dialogue
with that found thing, that
inserted thing in a different
way than you would or that you'd
set out to do. And so that's how...
it's the same way I talked
about narrowing and like helium
or whatever tightening.
I do think about like letting
your ideas or your what you set
out to do, bounce against
things that you didn't. Like
making little different choices
or just throwing some strange
moment in. I had great things
like, oh, well, there's going to
be an earthquake right now.
Like, what does that do, right?
So creating that paradigm can
really help, I think, with...
Does that help answer your
question?
>> Yeah, no, thank you. 
Especially
like the little anchors and the
different choices. That's
incredibly helpful. Thank you.
>> Henry Hoke:
Just yeah, keep
bouncing off of things instead
of, like, thinking you can
find one straight path.
I think that never works for
me. I always have to
upset. I have to interrupt...
>> My straight path 
wouldn't work. Yeah.
>> Megan Labrise:
Sorry, yes.
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
I think when I'm writing
non-human characters, for me, so
much of it is about sitting 
and listening.
And just particularly, you have
a non-human character who is
around humans. My character 
is very bored and
spends a lot of time observing.
So I tried to this became
harder during Covid when
everything was shut down.
But just spend intentional time
sitting and listening and
absorbing in almost a passive
way, like not employing myself
not to react to the
conversations I'm hearing around
me, but just to like absorb
them in a way that maybe an
animal or a table or a lake or
whatever might experience
those things.
>> Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you very much. I'm
excited to finish your book and
to start yours.
>> Megan Labrise: Thank you 
for the question [inaudible].
And finally, a subconscious stew.
That's a really good title 
or a subtitle.
You should write that one down.
>> Henry Hoke:
I love that.
>> Hi, my name is Liesl.
I'm a children's librarian in a
public [inaudible].
So I read a lot of books for
kids and a lot of books for kids
have animal protagonists.
Although I have read
"Remarkably Bright Creatures" 
and I loved it
and I'm very excited to read
"Open Throat" next.
So I just wanted to ask you
guys if you had a favorite
fictional animal protagonist of
maybe from a children's book or
from another adult fiction
writer, and I would love to hear
about who they are.
>> Shelby Van Pelt: Well, I have
two that come to mind.
The one from my childhood would
be "Charlotte's Web," which was
one of my favorite books. It's
been one of my kids favorite
books. You know, there's a line
in the book that really
resonated with me when I was
drafting, and I was at the same
time rereading "Charlotte's Web"
aloud to my kids.
And it's the two parents
talking.
And I think the dad says, you
know, "Oh, Fern spends so much
time down at the barn with
these animals and it's just
nonsense. Everyone knows that
animals can't talk."
And the mom replies, "Well, you
know, maybe we just don't
know how to listen or something."
I probably butchered that,
please don't. Whoever's
recording this, don't quote me.
But you know, just that really.
I feel like that I took that to
heart when I was writing and for
"Stick Dog" my son is obsessed with.
I don't know if you know this
book, this is my favorite
contemporary one. He's a
snarky, wild dog who has snarky
wild dog friends and they run
around and make fun of humans
and it's absolutely fantastic.
>> Henry Hoke:
I learned to read with
"Calvin and Hobbes," 
the comic strip, and
in the anthologies.
That's why I know a lot
of really dark, strange things
and words. It's a very bizarre
thing to learn to read with,
but I did. And so that's really
what it is for me, is the
relationship between 
Calvin and Hobbes
and they're both full human beings.
Even though one's the 
other stuffed animal.
That was, that's it.
That's the lodestone of my
creativity, I think.
>> Megan Labrise: Beautiful. 
I've got one for you, too.
It's called "Egmont." It's by 
Marjorie Weinman Sharmat,
I think. You know the 
reader's dilemma.
You really never know how the
author's name is pronounced
because you just see it on the
book. Picture book about an old
bored turtle who has holes in
his socks, who is despairing
until he meets a lady turtle
and then they tell all their
lifelong stories to the rat and
mice children of the neighborhood.
>> That's adorable.
>> Megan Labrise:
Favorite.
>> Thank you, everybody.
>> Henry Hoke:
Thank you.
Thank you for being a
children's librarian.
>> Hi, everybody.
My name is Kimberly. Shelby,
your book was a joy to read.
Just a joy.
My question is about it's a
human question about mothers and
motherhood. So we see Tova at
the end of her motherhood
journey. There's a pregnant
woman, there's a knitting group,
there's a mother with a teen
aged child.
And I just I'm curious about
the theme of mothers and
motherhood. Was that something
that you really centered in the
book, or was it really just
present for you? I'm really curious.
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
I mean, it was it was a very
present part of my life at the
time that I was writing it
because I had two young kids of
my own. And it's so funny to me
that I feel like I wrote every
character except myself
directly into the book because
there really aren't any young
kids like that.
But yeah, I think, you know, the
central sort of motherhood
relationship that of Tova and
her missing child who had died
many, many years before, you
know, just really comes out of
my own anxiety as a parent.
You know, you think of like,
what is the worst thing that I
can imagine going through and
then just trying to live that
through my character.
>> Megan Labrise:
Thank you, Kimberly.
Okay, these will be our last
three questions.
Please, go ahead.
>> Hi, I'm rebecca.
Both of your
books have such beautiful format
in print, and I was really
curious what went into that on
your side of things, because I
know like Shelby your book is
obviously the cover is great for
both of them. Yours has really
nice illustrations on the
chapter titles and stuff.
And Henry, with your book, with
the monologue format, it's very
unique and I was just curious
how much went into that and how
that gets translated into audio
and e-book format.
>> Henry Hoke: I can be
pretty brief with it. I just I
like to write and sort of
fragments and line breaks just
more poetically.
My book has no punctuation.
It uses line breaks for 
spacing and breath.
And it's also how I read, like
just how I pace, how I read.
And it's how Pete, my
audiobook reader did it.
So it worked really well as
like, it seemed to work.
Like even in his audition, I
was like, he gets it.
He gets why I wrote it like
that and how it's supposed to
sort of come across.
And I wrote it like that in
word and they went with it and
it looks exactly like that in
the finished copy.
So I was very grateful to have
people who got it throughout.
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
I think because my book does
something a little bit strange,
it shifts from a first person
narrator in Marcellus to a third
person. They really wanted to
make sure that people understood
that. I mean, it's fairly
obvious, but it's just that that
visual marker of like, okay,
hey, we're shifting into this
other narrative form, I
love the artwork that they
put with it, it's great. And
then in the audio book, they had
two different narrators for the
octopus sections versus
everything else.
So yeah, I think that I can't
take credit for most of that.
My publisher kind of did the
heavy lifting on that, but
really put some time and effort
into making this unusual
format a little bit more digestible.
>> Henry Hoke:
The openings have been Marcellus
chapters have these beautiful
tentacles coming down like sort
of shaded tentacles on each.
Like the dog ears, 
it's really. Yeah, it just just
gives you that octopus flavor.
>> Thank you.
>> Megan Labrise: Thank you
what's your name?
>> My name is Grace.
And since you didn't really
know how the book was going to
end when you started writing
it, as you started to create the
characters, did that ever
influenced the plot at all?
>> Shelby Van Pelt: Yeah, 
that's a great question, Grace.
Thank you. For me, the characters
definitely influenced the plot.
I'm not a plotter.
I'm more of a pantser, as we say.
So I kind of I often just will
put like two characters together
and give them a mildly
frustrating situation and see
what happens and that's how I
get a lot of my plot points.
>> Henry Hoke:
Yeah. For me, in a way, I knew
the ending, but it was like what
I said about playing and having
the thunder and everything.
I was like, I'm going to have
to get there sometime.
I'm not going to spoil
anything. But it was
a hard thing to do.
It came from knowing that
I had to do it to him, you know,
like I had to create meaning,
it had to go where it went and
it had to continue and follow
it. And it is what I wanted was
for the characters... the
character, like the desire had
to lead to the ending.
It couldn't just be from
without. It had to be like,
okay, no, this character is
going to... there's a line.
It's a terrible choice, but I'm
making it just like a person.
[Laughing]
Like the knowledge of
your actions having
consequences. But you must do
them. That was why it made
sense to me and why it mattered
to me.
So it was very much like I had
to earn my ending with the
character getting there, and I
think that was important.
I think that is always kind of
that's a key to creating, to
finishing this ridiculous
enterprise of hours of 
writing books. Yeah.
>> Megan Labrise:
Okay, time is up, but we're
breaking all the rules here at
Animals Talk to Me.
Please bring us home.
>> Hi, I'm Sarah. Shelby,
there are so many parallels
between Marcellus and Tova, and
I was just wondering how you
went about bridging that
connection between species and
exploring the relationship
between humans and animals.
>> Shelby Van Pelt:
Well, I think they're both
fundamentally very lonely.
And they figure that they
have that in common.
You know, Marcellus at one
point makes this observation
that he has no one to talk to
in... like he can't, he's
smarter than everyone else. He
can't communicate.
He's kind of on an island.
And then, you know, Tova is
more on an island of her own
making because she has put
herself there and kept everyone
else at arm's length.
It just felt like a very
natural friendship to me.
For that reason, I feel like
they were just...
They are kind of kindred spirits.
>> Thank you.
>> Megan Labrise:
Thank you, Sarah.
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