Monday, September 28, 2026

5:30 PM - 8:00 PM

Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum

When Shelby Van Pelt (PPE ’02), on a hiatus from her consulting career, started writing a novel narrated by a snarky giant Pacific octopus, she never imagined anyone would read it. But writing it prodded parts of her imagination that she hadn’t engaged in decades, and that was fun, so she kept at it. Fast-forward fifteen years and Remarkably Bright Creatures has sold more than five million copies worldwide, and its Netflix adaptation, starring Sally Field, held the streamer’s number-one spot for weeks following its May 2026 release, sparking a global social-media outpouring of emotion and joy and tears, with “Why am I sobbing over a fictional octopus” as a common caption. Van Pelt doesn’t have a definitive answer to that question, but she’s thought about it plenty. In true CMC fashion, she contemplates society’s marketplaces: in this case, for imagination and curiosity. In this talk, she offers her candid take on how a fictional octopus might fill a whimsy-void that we don’t know we’re missing.