On Meeting Margaret Atwood

I have such very sweet men in my life. My darling brother, in search of the perfect Christmas gift for me, asked Bibliohubby for advice and was told that a book was a no-fail idea. Not just any old book, mind you, but a special book by one of my favourite writers, a signed copy or a first edition (for those of you new to this space, I became a proper collector only quite recently, but I am a passionate one). Armed with this information, my brother started an internet search which led him to this golden nugget of information: Margaret Atwood was speaking and signing copies of her new book, Maddaddam, within easy driving distance of us both in November.  Apparently he then told his wife, my sister-in-law, that he had found the best present ever for me, and that he planned to attend the event by himself, buy a book and have Margaret Atwood sign it for me.

Umm...

Fortunately, his lovely wife is an eminently sensible person who pointed out to him that actually meeting Margaret Atwood might be more important to me than the book. She told him I would be mad if I found out that I had a chance to meet her and he hadn't told me (thanks SIL!). So... he told me, and my mum, and we all went along together one night in November to hear Ms Atwood speak.

I'll tell you a secret: I have actually heard her once before. She visited Kingston, Ontario when I was a student at Queen's University. But this was years ago - I won't tell you how many, it will date me.

I was very glad to see her again. Her wit is as sharp as I remembered. She is fiercely intelligent. She speaks quickly and with vigour and great humour. She said the MaddAddam trilogy was designed to be structured like a peace sign or a Mercedes symbol, meaning that the first two books sat apart but not chronologically - narratively. This third and final book is the thread that weaves the two stories together.  To me, this creative structuring is so original that it makes up for the fact that the sci-fi themes running through the books have been seen before in different iterations. I read a review recently (in the Guardian, of all places) to the effect that the trilogy was diverting and well-written, but that it was difficult to read it knowing that one might instead have been reading another book like Alias Grace or The Blind Assassin. In other words, he wishes Atwood would return to writing literary fiction, because he believe that to be a higher art form.

Well. I think Margaret Atwood has earned the right to write whatever she damn well pleases.

After the reading (which was fast-paced and funny - a great teaser for the book itself), I left the auditorium and joined the queue waiting to have my pre-purchased book signed. My brother - again proving his substantial worth - had left the reading a few minutes before, to relieve me of a fussy Miss Lulu, and managed to get in line early so that I had only minutes to wait before presenting my title page for signing.

And then I introduced myself to Margaret Atwood (!) and asked her this question: "If you were publishing for the first time today, would you publish electronically?"

We spoke for some time, enough time that the people behind me in line grew agitated. She said that yes, absolutely, she would have done that - as a teenager, for practice, in a safe space like Wattpad. She said that back then there was no such useful forum to test one's skills, to gain feedback that allowed one to improve as a writer.

But whether she would publish a novel electronically, rather than through a publisher? She wouldn't commit, but she seemed doubtful. "It's difficult to say what I might have done," she eventually said. Inferring: had times been different.

Quite apart from the thrill of meeting Ms Atwood itself, and engaging her sufficiently to have a brief one-on-one conversation, I also found that I completely agreed with both of her sentiments - her enthusiasm for electronic publishing as a testing ground for young new writers, and her obvious reluctance to embrace it as the model for more serious publishing. We may both be proved wrong on the latter point, of course, time will tell.

Let me take a moment, here, to publicly thank my brother for this amazing experience. And I will report back later this year when I have read the book.