Margaret Atwood webchat in London UK
SUMMMARY: the day after: 9/29 -- the live webchat for 90 minutes went well and all the questions she was asked and had time to answer are now UP at the Guardian site.
BRAVO DR ATWOOOD!
A Margaret Atwood UK book event blog post from the keyboard of UK PR maven and cli fi novelist Lisa Devaney http://northwardho.blogspot.tw/2015/09/a-margaret-atwood-story-from-keyboard.html #clifi
The Canadian speculative fiction novelist will take questions for a live webchat on Monday in LONDON on September 28 at 1 p.m. BST onwards – re her new novel is
''The Heart Goes Last''
http://www.theguardian.com/books/live/2015/sep/25/margaret-atwood-webchat-the-heart-goes-last?CMP=share_btn_tw#block-56051b79e4b013748ad37ccc
HERE ARE SOME OF THE QUESTIONS THAT HAVE COME IN SO FAR: (below)
QUESTION: What do you think the rash of dystopian eco-disaster novels, films and tv that have come out in the past decade means?
''The Heart Goes Last''
http://www.theguardian.com/books/live/2015/sep/25/margaret-atwood-webchat-the-heart-goes-last?CMP=share_btn_tw#block-56051b79e4b013748ad37ccc
HERE ARE SOME OF THE QUESTIONS THAT HAVE COME IN SO FAR: (below)
QUESTION: What do you think the rash of dystopian eco-disaster novels, films and tv that have come out in the past decade means?
01
Blessed be those who dare.
Since writers nowadays are vulnerable to online abuse, do you feel that you now need more courage than ever to continue writing?
Since writers nowadays are vulnerable to online abuse, do you feel that you now need more courage than ever to continue writing?
Your poem "In Praise of Stupid Women" remains my favorite piece of verse. Have you ever thought about writing a sequel to it, in light of changes about the representation of women in literature today?
01
How do you write -- wait, no, that's not my question!
I once spoke with an individual who said he loved Haruki Murakami's books, and then admitted he hadn't read any when I asked for his favorite. Which book(s) have you claimed to have read and haven't? I'm sure there must be one...as a gesture of quid pro quo, I told my mother (a huge fan) that I had read Harry Potter up to book four. I have not. She caught me out.
I once spoke with an individual who said he loved Haruki Murakami's books, and then admitted he hadn't read any when I asked for his favorite. Which book(s) have you claimed to have read and haven't? I'm sure there must be one...as a gesture of quid pro quo, I told my mother (a huge fan) that I had read Harry Potter up to book four. I have not. She caught me out.
01
William Gibson said something like it is not possible to look closely at the modern world and its trajectory without coming to a bleak or dystopian view. In the light of your Oryx and Crake trilogy (which I loved), would you agree with him? If there is hope for humanity at this historical moment, where do you think it is coming from, especially within the arts?
01
I'm a molecular biologist and I loved Oryx and Crake - a fantastic novel. With the current revolution in genome editing, how do you feel the dystopia portrayed in the novel looks now in the light of the new technology. Must things necessarily turn out so wrong, or is there a more positive side to genetic engineering?
23
I read Lady Oracle as a teen (after being introduced to you through The Handmaid's Tale in my A Level English class) and it's been a favourite of mine ever since. I've re-read it now and again and it never fails to cheer me up. Where did the inspiration for the story come from, and you do plan on revisiting Joan Foster's story at all?
12
Pride in succeeding or fear of failure - which do you believe to be more motivating?
Post your questions for Margaret Atwood at the Guardian site:
After emerging in the early 1970s, Margaret Atwood is has been dubbed a feminist writer, among other labels. But while her explorations of female identity in the likes of Surfacing and Cat’s Eye are fierce, no one catch-all term can possibly sum her up.
She might equally be thought of as a spec fic author or even a cli-fi author, for her eerily possible fundamentalist dystopia in The Handmaid’s Tale and her futuristic Oryx and Crake trilogy, set in a world where genetic engineering has created a new type of human.
She has written historical fiction, like the Booker-winning The Blind Assassin; she is also a poet, essayist, children’s author, librettist and inventor.
Her novel The Heart Goes Last is similarly resistant to category.
“Jubilant comedy of errors, bizarre bedroom farce, SF prison-break thriller, psychedelic 60s crime caper: The Heart Goes Last scampers in and out of all of these genres,” wrote M John Harrison in the Guardian.
Atwood is joining us to answer questions about it and anything else in her career, in a live webchat from 1pm BST onwards on Monday 28 September. Post your questions , and the ten that she deems the best will receive a signed ebook copy of the novel.
MORE QUESTIONS HERE:
Alexandriana
She might equally be thought of as a spec fic author or even a cli-fi author, for her eerily possible fundamentalist dystopia in The Handmaid’s Tale and her futuristic Oryx and Crake trilogy, set in a world where genetic engineering has created a new type of human.
She has written historical fiction, like the Booker-winning The Blind Assassin; she is also a poet, essayist, children’s author, librettist and inventor.
Her novel The Heart Goes Last is similarly resistant to category.
“Jubilant comedy of errors, bizarre bedroom farce, SF prison-break thriller, psychedelic 60s crime caper: The Heart Goes Last scampers in and out of all of these genres,” wrote M John Harrison in the Guardian.
Atwood is joining us to answer questions about it and anything else in her career, in a live webchat from 1pm BST onwards on Monday 28 September. Post your questions , and the ten that she deems the best will receive a signed ebook copy of the novel.
MORE QUESTIONS HERE:
Alexandriana
01
Did you know at the inception of Oryx & Crake that it would be the first part of a trilogy?
If you had to write a sequel to any of your previous novels, which one would you choose?
If you had to write a sequel to any of your previous novels, which one would you choose?
more:
Margaret, have you ever baked a cake in the shape of a woman? If so, what colored icing did you use?
Margaret, have you ever baked a cake in the shape of a woman? If so, what colored icing did you use?
23
Will you ever construct a dark poem again - like the red-headed single woman of 1700's Salem, accused of being a witch, hung by the neck, in her cherry orchard, defying all odds by living until morning, and therefore could no longer be accused of being a witch.
She then collected black cats in earnest.
This beautifully twisted bit of work has changed my life forever.
Whenever I am sad, I think of her, hanging all night in her orchard, quietly looking at the stars and thinking.......
Will you please write more poetry?
You are such a creative genius.
She then collected black cats in earnest.
This beautifully twisted bit of work has changed my life forever.
Whenever I am sad, I think of her, hanging all night in her orchard, quietly looking at the stars and thinking.......
Will you please write more poetry?
You are such a creative genius.
01
I loved the Maddadam trilogy so much -- thank you for your perspicacity on so many issues! While I love them unreservedly, I do sometimes find your novels so bleak that I'm quite depressed at the end, and find it difficult to fight the problems that you dramatize so beautifully. If the problems seem overwhelmingly entrenched, how do we find the will to fight them?
12
I wondered how you felt about your name being on the Published List of Authors printed by the International Baccalaureate Organization and having A Handmaid's Tale read by so many students all over the world studying literature in English. I know my students here in Armenia would love to read your answer. You have a truly global readership in our school as our students represent scores of different countries.
12
In your recent essay in theGuardian, dated 19 September, you are talking about us "surrendering our hard-won freedoms too easily..." and that "Digital technology has made it easier than ever to treat people like domesticated animals farmed for profit". Because we leave a digital footprint wherever we go, a footprint that we can not escape because we have a social security card, a health card, a bank card and so on, however, shouldn't we be looking to ourselves for the answers. We are making it easier for them by streaming all that information online, and the amount of information we reveal about ourselves voluntarily is stupefying. We reveal our phone numbers, birthdays, addresses, where we are, what we are doing, with whom we are with, what we buy, what we eat, how much we spend and where we spend it. How and when did we become so gullible?
23
Did you ever have a name in mind for Ofglen in 'The Handmaid's Tale'? I remember in A Level English we discussed whether it could be 'June': there was a chapter which began with the Handmaids sharing their names and we then met all of those named characters except for June. It's something I've always wondered subsequently when I've read it! (I know the film version used 'Kate' which seemed wrong to me; although as with so many adaptations, much of it did...)
01
I realise that in some ways there's not a lot to recommend our planet's future prospects under climate change. And I've read in the past that you've said that it's now become a race between our technological development and ecological management, and the decline of the earth's resources and our changing environment. Has there been any progress in particular that makes you feel optimistic about our changes of survival? Something that has always impressed me tremendously about your books is that they make me imagine a future so precisely, and you so frequently draw upon fact and nature.
12
I met you once on the Queen Mary 2 transatlantic crossing from NY to Southampton. I wanted to tell you how much I loved your work but as a young 20-something I was struck dumb in your presence. Your novels inspired me to study Canadian literature at university. I'm curious to know who you enjoy reading? What books are old favourites?
genregirl
19h ago
Your MADDADDAM trilogy has been classified as a cli fi work, and some internet sites creditr you with coming up with the cli fi term. Is MADDADDAM a cli fi work and did you intend it that way and how did you come up with that weird-sounding genre term that at first glance looks like clit-hit?
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