Atwood Shows her Funny Side
Margaret Atwood had them rolling in the aisles at the Toronto Reference Library's Bram & Bluma Appel Salon last night. The occasion was an interview with Globe and Mail writer Ian Brown –part of the Writer's Room series, where authors talk about their body of work.
The tone of the interview was set with Ian's first question –which had to do with Atwood's having won'the prize for humour writing in Sweden. Atwood drolly quipped that there must be something about the translation process that made her writing very funny in Swedish. From there, the two were off to the races, discussing her latest novel,Year of the Flood, as well as her other work, her childhood and her method of writing.
Atwood turns out to be a bit of geek . (Not suprising from the inventor of the Long Pen remote signing system). She has a huge following on Twitter ,and she filled us in on some of the lingo the Twitter community uses to speed things along –"lmoao" for "laughed my own ass off" for instance.
She also revealed that she is in the process of writing a third companion novel to Oryx and Crake and Year of the Flood. When Ian said that Atwood was "famously nervous" about the future of the human race, Atwood pointed out that almost everyone in the room was, and that the great power of narrative and fiction lies in showing people that change is possible.
If you missed it, video will up next week here.
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