KUOW Book Talks with Anne de Marcken and Katie Campbell

The undead narrator at the center of Anne de Marcken’s novel is adrift, having forgotten her name and much of what once made her human. Longing to be known and loved again, she journeys west in search of a place where she might recover some part of herself — accompanied all the while by an opinionated crow living in her chest. The result is a genre-defying meditation on mortality, transformation, and love. In conversation with Katie Campbell, de Marcken will explore what it means to be alive.

About the Book:

The heroine of the spare and haunting “It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over” is voraciously alive in the afterlife. Adrift yet keenly aware, she notes every bizarre detail of her new reality. And even if she has forgotten her name and much of what connects her to her humanity, she remembers with an implacable and nearly unbearable longing the place where she knew herself and was known (and loved), and she is determined to get back there at any cost. Our dead heroine travels across the landscapes of time and space, encountering and losing parts of her body and her self in one terrifying, hilarious, and heartbreaking situation after another. A bracing writer of great nerve and verve, Anne de Marcken bends reality (and the reader's mind) with throwaway assurance. “It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over” plumbs mortality and how it changes everything, except possibly love. Delivering a near-Beckettian whopping to the reader's imagination, this is one of the sharpest and funniest novels of recent years, a tale for our dispossessed times.

About the Speakers:

Anne de Marcken is a writer and interdisciplinary artist. Winner of the The Novel Prize, the Ursula K. Le Guin Fiction Prize, and the Cabell Award, her novel, “It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over,” was simultaneously published by New Directions (US), Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK) and Giramondo (AU) in March of 2024, and been translated into five languages. She is also author of the lyric novella, “The Accident: An Account,” and her writing has been featured in Best New American Voices, Brick, Ploughshares, Narrative, Entropy, Litt, The Los Angeles Review, on NPR’s Selected Shorts and elsewhere. She is an Artist Trust Fellow (2017) and recipient of the Howard Frank Mosher Prize for Short Fiction, the Stella Kupferberg Memorial Prize, the Mary C. Mohr Short Fiction Award and the Ploughshares Emerging Writer Award, in addition to numerous jury and audience prizes for her feature film Group (2002). Site-specific works include Invisible Ink: Reparations (2017), Invisible Ink: Homeless (2018) and The Redaction Project (2016). Her work across disciplines has garnered grant and fellowship support from the Millay Colony, Jentel Foundation, Centrum, Artist Trust and the Hafer Family Foundation. Anne lives with her spouse, fellow artist M Freeman, on the unceded land of the Coast Salish people in Olympia, WA, where she runs the innovative small press The 3rd Thing.

Katie Campbell joined KUOW's online team as an editor and reporter in 2024, after serving three years as senior producer of the local Morning Edition program. She has covered a variety of local topics, including the Seattle City Council, elections, and breaking news. She also brings readers some levity with a weekly news quiz. In 2024, Katie created the KUOW Book Club, featuring stories and authors from the Pacific Northwest. Katie picks monthly titles and provides analysis along the way. She ends each reading with an author interview, giving readers a look behind the scenes from some of the most talented writers in the region. You can join the KUOW Book Club by signing up for their newsletter.

Thanks to our partners KUOW and Third Place Books.

Thanks to our sponsors  The Seattle Public Library Foundation  and  The Gary and Connie Kunis Foundation.

Thanks to media sponsor  The Seattle Times.

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