Wordfest is thrilled to present Margaret Atwood in celebration of Book of Lives, her long-awaited memoir (of sorts). She lent her lustre to the our first festival back in 1996, which makes it even more special that she will be the supernova of the grand finale of our 30th Anniversary year. Bonus! The conversation will be hosted by the astonishing Heather O’Neill.
“I sweated blood over this book—there was too much life to stuff in, and if I’d died at 25 like John Keats, it could have been shorter—but I also laughed a lot,” Atwood told about People Magazine about Book of Lives, which comes out on Nov. 4 (pre-order your copy through Owl’s Nest Books). “A memoir is what you can remember, and you remember mostly stupid things, catastrophes, revenges, and times of political horror, so I put those in—but I also added moments of joy, and surprising events and, of course, the books.”
This unmissable show, the final stop on Atwood’s three-city Canadian tour, takes place at the Jack Singer Concert Hall and includes assigned seating. All tickets are sold through the Werklund Centre Box Office (formerly Arts Commons). Copies of Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts and a selection of Atwood’s backlist will be available for sale in the lobby, fuelled by Owl’s Nest Books. Please note that there will be no book signing.
We’d like to thank Penguin Random House Canada for making it possible to connect you with Margaret Atwood.
Margaret Atwood has been a key part of Wordfest’s DNA since our inception in 1996! Watch this mini-doc featuring Founding Director Anne Green and current CEO & Creative Ringleader Shelley Youngblut as they share tales from Wordfest’s 30 fabulous years, including magical moments with Margaret. Film by Pluto Pictures. Music by Kenna Burima.
Heather O’Neill
Conversation
Pop-Up Bookstore
Pre-Order Books
75 minutes. No intermission
Penguin Random House Canada
Margaret Atwood is the author of more than 50 books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. Her novels include Cat’s Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, and the MaddAddam trilogy. Her 1985 classic, The Handmaid’s Tale, was followed in 2019 by a sequel, The Testaments, which was a global number one bestseller and shared the Booker Prize. Her most recent publications are the poetry collections Dearly and Paper Boat; Burning Questions, a selection of essays; and Old Babes in the Wood, a volume of short stories. Atwood is a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour, and has won numerous awards including the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. She has also worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, librettist, playwright, and puppeteer. She lives in Toronto.
How does one of the greatest storytellers of our time write her own life? The long-awaited memoir from one of our most lauded and influential cultural figures.
“Every writer is at least two beings: the one who lives, and the one who writes. Though everything written must have passed through their minds, or mind, they are not the same.”
Raised by ruggedly independent, scientifically minded parents—entomologist father, dietician mother—Atwood spent most of each year in the wild forest of northern Quebec. This childhood was unfettered and nomadic, sometimes isolated (on her eighth birthday: “It sounds forlorn. It was forlorn. It gets more forlorn”), but also thrilling and beautiful.
From this unconventional start, Atwood unfolds the story of her life, linking seminal moments to the books that have shaped our literary landscape, from the cruel year that spawned Cat’s Eye to the Orwellian 1980s of East Berlin where she wrote The Handmaid’s Tale. In pages bursting with bohemian gatherings, her magical life with the wildly charismatic writer Graeme Gibson and major political turning points, we meet poets, bears, Hollywood actors, and larger-than-life characters straight from the pages of an Atwood novel.
As we travel with her along the course of her life, more and more is revealed about her writing, the connections between real life and art—and the workings of one of our greatest imaginations
Heather O’Neill
Conversation
Pop-Up Bookstore
Pre-Order Books
75 minutes. No intermission
Penguin Random House Canada
Heather O’Neill is a novelist, short-story writer, and essayist. Her work, which includes Capital of Dreams, When We Lost Our Heads, Lullabies for Little Criminals, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, and Daydreams of Angels, has been shortlisted for a Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction, the Orange Prize for Fiction, and the Scotiabank Giller Prize in two consecutive years, and has won CBC Canada Reads, the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction, and the Danuta Gleed Award. Born and raised in Montreal, O’Neill lives there today with her daughter Arizona, with whom she co-created her most recent book Valentine in Montreal, along with The O’Neill Reads Instagram account and beloved Wordfest Imaginairium Talk Show.
In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge that we live, work and play on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Kainai, Piikani), the Tsuut’ina, the Iyarhe Nakoda Nations, the Otipemisiwak Métis Government of the Métis Nation within Alberta District 6, and all people who make their homes in the Treaty 7 region of Southern Alberta.
Join our email list to receive a reminder when shows go on sale.
