Happy 85th birthday to Margaret Atwood! I wonder what she thought being 85 would be like when she wrote the title story of her first collection, Dancing Girls (1977). The original publications for each of the stories are listed in my 1978 paperback, indicating that only three stories were
Has anyone else read “Ariadne Sends a Message,” an Atwood poem from Paper Boat: New and Selected Poems 1961-2023 shared on Lithub last month? See how easy it is to participate in MARM? Just one click and a few verses. (And, if you’re playing Bingo, those “lion skins”—poor lions—can
The title of this story reminded me of both “The Last Interview” series and the Proust Questionnaire—as it has been broadcast in CBC’s “The Next Chapter” with the interview questions posed to contemporary authors in an otherworldly, beyond-the-grave-ish questioning tone. It strikes me as a piece that would have
Julia is lying on the hotel bathroom floor with a nosebleed, a few hours before her literary reading, from her book of poetry, at an event in northern Ontario. She jokes that she’s a “promising” poet, which means that her fee is lower than that paid to poets who
Anyone else have trouble focussing this week? I know I’m not the only one. At the same time, it felt particularly important to read the words of a writer like this. I have this quotation flagged in my notebook from an earlier reading of her essay collection Second Words:
