This was one of my favorite reads last year, and I looked into the origin story since it's Shelby Van Pelt's debut (and she rocked it). Have to share some quotes from her recounting the writing process bc this is literally so crazy impressive and inspirational: On her inspiration: "I saw this clip of an octopus who was determined to escape its enclosure, and I just thought…there’s a character in there. A little while later, I was in a writing workshop, and we had this prompt to write from an unexpected point of view, so my mind immediately went to that octopus. Exasperated and frustrated at the bumbling humans who were trying to keep him confined. The scene that I wrote in that class eventually became the first pages of this novel." On her experience: "When I enrolled in the workshop [...] I'd never taken a writing class before. But I had always enjoyed writing, and I was living in a new city, and figured it might be a fun way to meet people. It was a continuing-education class, open to anyone. I’ve since done similar workshops at other institutions, and I am a huge fan of the community classes, adult enrichment, whatever you want to call them. In my experience, they are full of lovely, unpretentious folks from all different walks of life and are a wonderful, accessible resource for anyone who wants to get into writing."