Amy Weldon presents Creature in conversation with Michael Kleber-Diggs

In 1816, a nineteen-year-old single mother wrote a book that transformed our vision of birth, bodies, and who we call “monsters.” Creature: A Novel of Mary Shelley and Frankenstein is her story. From her first spark of inspiration to widowhood at age 24, through the deaths of four of her five children and her struggles to build a writing career, Creature braids Mary Shelley’s little-known life journey with that of her most famous character: Victor Frankenstein’s half-human Creature, who shadows her in alternating chapters as conscience, criminal, and friend. Traveling from London to Italy and into our own technological future, Creature blends historical realism and literary magic to show how a bookish, haunted girl learns to confront her monsters by bringing them to life.

Amy Weldon, an Alabama native, is Professor and Department Head of English and Dennis M. Jones Chair in the Humanities at Luther College and codirector of the biennial Luther College Writers Festival. She is the author of Creature: A Novel of Mary Shelley and Frankenstein (2025), Advanced Fiction: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology (2023), Eldorado, Iowa: A Novel (2019), The Writer’s Eye: Observation and Inspiration for Creative Writers (2018), and The Hands-On Life: How to Wake Yourself Up and Save The World (2018). Her next book, A Thing of Beauty: Reading the Romantics in a World on Fire, is scheduled for publication by Bloomsbury Academic in 2027.

Michael Kleber-Diggs (KLEE-burr digs) is a poet, essayist, literary critic, and arts educator. He is the author of My Weight in Water, a memoir about his complicated relationship with lap swimming (forthcoming with Spiegel & Grau, 2026). Michael’s debut poetry collection, , won the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize and was published by Milkweed Editions in 2021. His poems and essays often explore themes of intimacy, community, empathy, and grace, practices he believes are simultaneously distinct and interdependent. Michael is a 2023-2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow in Literature, and he teaches creative writing at Augsburg University and through the Minnesota Pr*son Writing Workshop. Michael is married to Karen Kleber-Diggs, a tropical horticulturist and orchid specialist. Karen and Michael have a daughter, Elinor, who lives in New York City and works as a professional dancer.

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