Author Talk: Maya Jewell Zeller and Katie Campbell

How do we define home — and ourselves? Born in a Pacific Northwest gas station to itinerant, countercultural parents, Maya Jewell Zeller grew up in a world shaped by poverty, wildness, and fierce self-reliance. In conversation with Katie Campbell, Zeller will reflect on her journey from what she calls “a feral girl” searching for both freedom and safety to a middle-class adult reckoning with identity, belonging, and uneasy privilege.

About the book:

Maya Jewell Zeller came of age in a landscape where poverty, wildness, and self-reliance intertwined. “Raised by Ferns” traces the path of a feral girl craving both freedom and safety to a middle-class adult life shaped by academia, motherhood, and uneasy privilege.

Refusing tired narratives of bootstrap triumph, Zeller instead renders rural America with intimate complexity. She writes with sharp lyricism and attention about what it means to live between worlds—material scarcity and cultural wealth, inherited distrust and institutional legitimacy. From leaking rentals to library stacks, from ferns and fire codes to scholarship and marital strife, Zeller’s life resists easy packaging yet finds form in layered essays that explore the complicated pursuit of belonging.

“Raised by Ferns” offers a vital, compelling new take on the forces that shape identity and the choices that define home. It is a story of survival, but more importantly, of questioning for what—and who—it is worth surviving.

About the speakers:

Maya Jewell Zeller is a multidisciplinary author, editor, and educator, whose just-out memoir is “Raised by Ferns;” other recent books include the lyric guide to fungi phenomena, “The Wonder of Mushrooms” (2025); the poetry collection, “out takes/ glove box” (2023); the co-written “Advanced Poetry: A Writer's Guide and Anthology” (Bloomsbury, 2024); and the collaboration--with Carrie DeBacker—"Alchemy for Cells & Other Beasts” (Entre Rios Books, 2017). Maya is a Full Professor of English at CWU, where she coordinates the online and in-person Professional and Creative Writing Programs; she also serves as Affiliate Faculty in Nature Writing and Poetry for the low-residency MFA at Western Colorado University.

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.

Thanks to our partner KUOW.

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

Thanks to media sponsor  The Seattle Times.

KUOW Live Events are sponsored by Phinney Ridge Painting and Microsoft.

Registration is required. Register  here.

Doors open at 6:00 p.m.

View in catalog: " Raised by Ferns " by Maya Jewell Zeller.