The OctoPost: Squidtember!
Cephalopod News
Happy Squidtember! Started in 2022 by OceanX, this month-long celebration shines a (bioluminescent) light on all the ten-limbed cephalopods that tend to get less attention than their eight-armed cousins.
Although squid have a lot in common with octopuses, they also have some wild features no octopus could dream up—for example, the two explosively elastic tentacles that shoot out to grab prey and, when added to their eight arms, bring them to a total of ten appendages. Plus, how about those toothed sucker rings that inspired engineers to make self-healing materials? Not to mention flight—yep, jet-powered, through-the-air, actual flight.
This year I’m part of a squid enthusiast crew who set up a March Madness style tournament for #BestSquid. I doodled all the initial matchups:
Scandal struck on the third match, and the Vampire Squid wound up DISQUALIFIED on account of lacking true squid credentials! Shh, here’s a secret: we planned this from the beginning, so we could teach folks about evolutionary history and why vampire squid are closer to octopuses. The whole tournament is just a fun frame for science education, an excuse to share facts about our favorite squid!
In case you’re feeling bad for vampire squid, rest assured they are completely content eating poop in the deep sea.
If you want to vote in the remaining matches, or just follow the drama, Sarah McAnulty is hosting on Squidder, Meg Mindlin on Insquidram, and yours truly on Bluesquid.
I know, I know, that was a lot of squid for a newsletter titled “The OctoPost.” Never fear, next month is OCTOber! And here’s some cool news: Remarkably Bright Creatures, the bestselling novel with an octopus narrator, is going to be a movie! I can’t wait to see who gets cast as the octopus.
My News
The Lady and the Octopus, my biography of aquarium inventor Jeanne Villepreux-Power, was featured on the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Book Club! I had a delightful interview with Aminah Mae Safi on Instagram Live, in which we discussed the resilience of both humans and octopuses, the value of cross-pollinating fields of study, and my idea of creating historical fiction adventures for Jeanne and her fellow Victorian aquarist Anna Thynne.
I also gave a second octopus talk with Smithsonian Associates, summoned back by popular demand after my first talk, and was delighted that the audience seemed to enjoy it as much as I did. One of my favorite bits of audience feedback was “Encyclopedic knowledge, wildly enthusiastic about the subject, PhD from Stanford, and a bit goofy to boot!”
Funny Pages
Presented without commentary.
Book Boilerplate
(It has been recommended to me to include this in my newsletters, so I’m trying it out. Please let me know if it’s irksome, and I’ll remove it.)
In addition to The Lady and the Octopus, I’ve written two other cephalopod books—Monarchs of the Sea and The Lives of Octopuses and Their Relatives—plus a deceptively cute-covered book about baby animals, Nursery Earth. (There are cute animals inside! But also parasitic wasps!)