MargaretAtwood

"As a child, I was one of those who buried treasures in jars, with the idea that someone, some day, might come along and dig them up. I found similar things while digging in the various gardens I have made: old nails, old medicine bottles, fragments of china plates... That is what the Future Library is like, in part: it will contain fragments of lives that were once lived, and that are now the past. But all writing is a method of preserving and transmitting the human voice."There’s a secret book that no one will read for 100 years.It is a book from the future, so it hasn’t been published yet.It is kept in a locked room, in a Norwegian library.There is a sacred grove that will provide the paper for its pages. And there are 100 authors who will write its secret stories. 100 years. 100 stories. 100 different writers.This is the Future Library (Framtidsbiblioteket). It is being created by Scottish artist Katie Paterson for the city of Oslo in Norway.When Katie had to choose the first writer to contribute the first story, she named Margaret Atwood, prizewinning author, poet, essayist, literary critic, and Wattpad’s official Fairy Godmother.Read Margaret's thoughts about her involvement in the project here. *Watch Margaret on Periscope on May 26th 2015 to witness the live event, and stay tuned for a special Wattpad writing contest coming soon!*…

MargaretAtwood

What happens when all your apocalyptic nightmares seem to be coming true? In this lyrically poignant piece, Margaret Atwood reflects on growing up in the age of the scarlet fever, diphtheria, polio and the whooping cough that swept Canada in the 1940s. Yellow signs with the words 'QUARANTINED' became a signature of the era and marked doors in neighbourhoods across the country. Drawing from her own experiences and the experiences of her parents who lived through the Spanish flu, Atwood sings words of encouragement, "Take heart! Humanity's been through it before. There will be an Other Side." And while nothing is scarier than an enemy you can't see, there is always hope and there is always another side. In a way that only she can, Atwood takes a look into the past and the present to give us words for the future.Copyright belongs to O.W. Toad and this piece first ran in The Globe and Mail.…

MargaretAtwood

Margaret Atwood's first graphic novel, Angel Catbird, tells the story of a hybrid human-cat-owl, Angel Catbird, and his peculiar identity conflict. Should he save that baby robin, or should he eat it? Read a synopsis of Angel Catbird Volume 1 and take a look at the excerpts posted here. Then write a new caption and/or dialog for the illustration and post it to this page, and you could be a winner! Four chances to WIN!…

MargaretAtwood

Stan and Charmaine are a married couple trying to stay afloat in the midst of an economic and social collapse. Job loss has forced them to live in their car, leaving them vulnerable to roving gangs. They desperately need to turn their situation around—and fast. The Positron Project in the town of Consilience seems to be the answer to their prayers. No one is unemployed and everyone gets a comfortable, clean house to live in . . . for six months out of the year. On alternating months, residents of Consilience must leave their homes and function as inmates in the Positron prison system. Once their month of service in the prison is completed, they can return to their "civilian" homes. At first, this doesn't seem like too much of a sacrifice to make in order to have a roof over one's head and food to eat. But when Charmaine becomes romantically involved with the man who lives in their house during the months when she and Stan are in the prison, a series of troubling events unfolds, putting Stan's life in danger. With each passing day, Positron looks less like a prayer answered and more like a chilling prophecy fulfilled.Keep reading and be sure to enter The Heart Goes Last Fiction contest!…

MargaretAtwood

Margaret Atwood’s new novel, The Heart Goes Last, imagines a world turned upside-down by a massive economic collapse. Stan and Charmaine, a married couple who were once gainfully employed, are forced to live in their car, vulnerable to roving bands of criminals. The Positron Project in the town of Consilience seems to be the answer to all their problems. Residents are required to live and work in the Positron prison for half of the time; on alternating months, they live in houses within the confines of Consilience. But this innovative solution to the economic crisis has a dark side... For this contest, consider these three characters and answer the question "What were their lives like before the great economic collapse?" Share your backstory with Margaret Atwood and Wattpadders everywhere and you could win. Keep reading for full details and good luck!…

MargaretAtwood

Write the future with Margaret Atwood If you could write a story for a time capsule, one that wouldn’t be opened until the year 2114, what would you say? To celebrate the creation of Katie Paterson's artwork Future Library, we’re hosting the “Dear 2114” Future Library writing contest with Margaret Atwood. The Writing ContestWrite a story based on one of the following prompts to enter the "Dear 2114" Future Library writing contest: *Dear 2114 - Write a story about the advice you would give the world in 2114?*This is 2114 - Write a story about what the world be like when the Future Library is opened in 2114?*Pandora's Room - Write what you imagine are in the stories of the Future Library that will be first read in 2114?Keep reading for full contest details and how to enter!…

MargaretAtwood

Congratulations to Jennifer Cooreman, the winner of Margaret Atwood's #Freeze-Dried Fiction contest!! Read Margaret Atwood's story, the Freeze Dried Groom, then read Jennifer's story as a prequel.About Sister of The Bride:When Dr. Claire Ledus loses her sister in a tragic accident, her life is changed forever. As she grieves, she struggles to forgive the man whose carelessness cut her sister's life short. Is Clyde Davis a monster, or simply a man who made a terrible mistake? Perhaps Clyde deserves Claire's forgiveness. But when Claire learns the truth about her sister's life after her death, she is no longer certain she can forgive herself.…

MargaretAtwood

Margaret Atwood’s story “The Freeze-Dried Groom,” from her new collection Stone Mattress, leaves the reader with many tantalizing questions. How does it end? Will Sam be a killer or a victim? What are the other characters’ versions of events?Answer some of these questions, or ask some of your own, by writing a fanfiction inspired by the characters or events of “The Freeze-Dried Groom.” Share your version of this haunting tale with Margaret Atwood and Wattpadders everywhere, and you could win!…

MargaretAtwood

The Freeze-Dried Groom is one of the nine stories in Margaret Atwood's fantastic new collection Stone Mattress. A collection of highly imaginative short pieces that speak to our times with deadly accuracy. Vintage Atwood creativity, intelligence, and humor: think Alias Grace.Margaret Atwood turns to short fiction for the first time since her 2006 collection, Moral Disorder, with nine tales of acute psychological insight and turbulent relationships bringing to mind her award-winning 1996 novel, Alias Grace. A recently widowed fantasy writer is guided through a stormy winter evening by the voice of her late husband in "Alphinland," the first of three loosely linked stories about the romantic geometries of a group of writers and artists. In "The Freeze-Dried Groom," a man who bids on an auctioned storage space has a surprise. In "Lusus Naturae," a woman born with a genetic abnormality is mistaken for a vampire. In "Torching the Dusties," an elderly lady with Charles Bonnet syndrome comes to terms with the little people she keeps seeing, while a newly formed populist group gathers to burn down her retirement residence. And in "Stone Mattress," a long-ago crime is avenged in the Arctic via a 1.9 billion-year-old stromatolite. In these nine tales, Margaret Atwood is at the top of her darkly humorous and seriously playful game.…

MargaretAtwood

A reading group guide for MaddAddam.…

MargaretAtwood

Why did you write MaddAddam, I’m sometimes asked?…

MargaretAtwood

Bringing together "Oryx and Crake" and "The Year of the Flood," this thrilling conclusion to Margaret Atwood's speculative fiction trilogy points toward the ultimate endurance of community, and love.Months after the Waterless Flood pandemic has wiped out most of humanity, Toby and Ren have rescued their friend Amanda from the vicious Painballers. They return to the MaddAddamite cob house, newly fortified against man and giant pigoon alike. Accompanying them are the Crakers, the gentle, quasi-human species engineered by the brilliant but deceased Crake. Their reluctant prophet, Snowman-the-Jimmy, is recovering from a debilitating fever, so it's left to Toby to preach the Craker theology, with Crake as Creator. She must also deal with cultural misunderstandings, terrible coffee, and her jealousy over her lover, Zeb.Zeb has been searching for Adam One, founder of the God's Gardeners, the pacifist green religion from which Zeb broke years ago to lead the MaddAddamites in active resistance against the destructive CorpSeCorps. But now, under threat of a Painballer attack, the MaddAddamites must fight back with the aid of their newfound allies, some of whom have four trotters. At the center of MaddAddam is the story of Zeb's dark and twisted past, which contains a lost brother, a hidden murder, a bear, and a bizarre act of revenge.Combining adventure, humor, romance, superb storytelling, and an imagination at once dazzlingly inventive and grounded in a recognizable world, MaddAddam is vintage Margaret Atwood—a moving and dramatic conclusion to her internationally celebrated dystopian trilogy.…

MargaretAtwood

The long-awaited new novel from Margaret Atwood. The Year of the Flood is a dystopic masterpiece and a testament to her visionary power.The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners—a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life—has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God's Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible.Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers . . .Meanwhile, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move. They can't stay locked away . . .By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful, and uneasily hilarious, The Year of the Flood is Atwood at her most brilliant and inventive.…

MargaretAtwood

This is Margaret Atwood at the absolute peak of her powers. For readers of "Oryx and Crake," nothing will ever look the same again.The narrator of Atwood's riveting novel calls himself Snowman. When the story opens, he is sleeping in a tree, wearing an old bedsheet, mourning the loss of his beloved Oryx and his best friend Crake, and slowly starving to death. He searches for supplies in a wasteland where insects proliferate and pigoons and wolvogs ravage the pleeblands, where ordinary people once lived, and the Compounds that sheltered the extraordinary. As he tries to piece together what has taken place, the narrative shifts to decades earlier. How did everything fall apart so quickly? Why is he left with nothing but his haunting memories? Alone except for the green-eyed Children of Crake, who think of him as a kind of monster, he explores the answers to these questions in the double journey he takes - into his own past, and back to Crake's high-tech bubble-dome, where the Paradice Project unfolded and the world came to grief.With breathtaking command of her shocking material, and with her customary sharp wit and dark humour, Atwood projects us into an outlandish yet wholly believable realm populated by characters who will continue to inhabit our dreams long after the last chapter.…

MargaretAtwood

In 1966, before they were international sensations, Margaret Atwood and Charles Pachter teamed up to create Speeches for Doctor Frankenstein — now a unique piece of cultural history. In a book that has only existed as an artist book of fifteen copies Charles Pachter set the poetry of Margaret Atwood to his beautiful and whimsical artwork. Produced originally on handmade paper made with materials found around his house, this is a rare work of art that should be read by anyone interested in the origins of these two great artists. This is exclusively available as an enhanced ebook for iPad and features an introduction by Margaret Atwood, a video interview with the artist, and audio of Margaret Atwood reading the poems.…

MargaretAtwood

In Thriller Suite -- appearing serially for the first time on Wattpad -- Margaret Atwood has gathered these new poems inspired by her long history as a reader of strange tales, from 19th century gothic classics to ghost stories to crime fiction and thrillers. Poems that cross thresholds...…