Margaret Eleanor Atwood, CC OOnt FRSC (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is a winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times, winning once, and has been a finalist for the Governor General's Award several times, winning twice. In 2001 she was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. She is also a founder of the Writers' Trust of Canada, a non-profit literary organization that seeks to encourage Canada's writing community. Among innumerable contributions to Canadian literature, she was a founding trustee of the Griffin Poetry Prize.Atwood is also the inventor, and developer, of the LongPen and associated technologies that facilitate the remote robotic writing of documents. She is the Co-Founder and a Director of Syngrafii Inc. (formerly Unotchit Inc.), a company that she started in 2004 to develop, produce and distribute the LongPen technology. She holds various patents related to the LongPen technologies.While she is best known for her work as a novelist, she has also published fifteen books of poetry.Many of her poems have been inspired by myths and fairy tales, which have been interests of hers from an early age. Atwood has published short stories in Tamarack Review, Alphabet, Harper's, CBC Anthology, Ms., Saturday Night, and many other magazines. She has also published four collections of stories and three collections of unclassifiable short prose works.
Harvard University, Radcliffe College, Leaside High School, University of Toronto, Victoria University, Toronto
Nationality
Canadian
Spouse
Jim Polk
Children
Eleanor Atwood Gibson
Parents
Roman Atwood, Brittney Smith, Carl Edmund Atwood, Margaret Dorothy Killam
Siblings
Ruth Atwood, Harold Leslie Atwood
Partner
Graeme Gibson (1973–)
Awards
Booker Prize, Scotiabank Giller Prize, Arthur C. Clarke Award, Princess of Asturias Award for Literature, Governor General's Award for English-language fiction, Goodreads Choice Awards Best Science Fiction, Hammett Prize, Governor General's Award for English-language poetry or drama, Helmerich Award...
Nominations
Man Booker International Prize, International Dublin Literary Award, Nebula Award for Best Novel, Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, James Tiptree Jr. Award, Neustadt International Prize for Literature, Goodreads Choice Awards Best Fiction, Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, Pri...
Movies
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood: Once in August, The Robber Bride, Not a Love Story: A Film About Pornography, Payback, In the Wake of the Flood, Yesno, Awaiting Atwood
Star Sign
Scorpio
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Quote
1
[with Graeme Gibson, on the death of Farley Mowat] Farley was a great and iconic Canadian who understood our environmental problems decades before others did. He loved this country with a passion and threw himself into the fray in wartime as well - also with a passion.
2
Publication on social media is in part a performance, as is everything 'social' that human beings do; but what happens when that brightly lit arena expands so much that there is no green room in which the mascara can be removed, no cluttered, imperfect backstage where we can be 'ourselves'? What happens to us if we must be 'on' all the time? Then we're in the twenty-four-hour glare of the supervised prison. To live entirely in public is a form of solitary confinement.
3
Plague has hung over human history. The biggest human extinction was after 1492 in North and South America when the mortality rate was ninety- five per cent, which is enormous. But again, I'm giving you grounds for optimism: there were enough to continue. The five per cent who made it through are what you need to survive a bottleneck.
4
On writing: If I waited for perfection...I would never write a word.
5
Om growth: Time is compressed like the fist I close on my knee...I hold inside it the clues and solutions and the power for what I must do now.
6
On childhood: Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life-sized.
7
Nobody dies from lack of sex. It's lack of love we die from.
8
All fat women look the same; they all look 42.
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Fact
1
Toronto, Ontario, Canada [July 2008]
2
Toronto, Ontario, Canada [June 2007]
3
Mother of Eleanor "Jess" Atwood Gibson born in 1976.
4
She was awarded the O.C. (Officer of the Order of Canada) on December 17, 1973 and the C.C. (Companion of the Order of Canada) on June 21, 1981 for her services to literature.
Writer
Title
Year
Status
Character
Alias Grace
2017
TV Series based on the novel by - 6 episodes pre-production
The Handmaid's Tale
2017
TV Series based on the novel by - 10 episodes filming
Payback
2012/I
Documentary book
The Robber Bride
2007
TV Movie based on the novel by
The Sin Eater
2004
Short short story
The Blind Assassin
2002
novel
The Handmaid's Tale
1990
novel
Screen Two
1987
TV Series writer - 1 episode
Surfacing
1981
novel
For the Record
1981
TV Series writer - 1 episode
Actress
Title
Year
Status
Character
Awaiting Atwood
2013
Short
Margaret Atwood
Yesno
2010
Short voice
Producer
Title
Year
Status
Character
The Handmaid's Tale
2017
TV Series consulting producer filming
Thanks
Title
Year
Status
Character
The Sweet Hereafter
1997
thanks
Atwood and Family
1985
Documentary short thanks
Self
Title
Year
Status
Character
Life and Times
1999-2001
TV Series documentary
Herself
The Enduring Enigma of Susanna Moodie
1997
Documentary
Herself
View from the Typewriter
1993
Herself
Al Purdy: A Sensitive Man
1988
Documentary
Herself
Atwood and Family
1985
Documentary short
Herself
Margaret Atwood: Once in August
1984
Documentary
Herself
Track Two
1982
Documentary
Not a Love Story: A Film About Pornography
1981
Documentary
Herself, Writer / Poet
Overheard
2015
TV Series
Herself - interviewee
Al Purdy Was Here
2015
Documentary
Herself
Frankenstein and the Vampyre: A Dark and Stormy Night
2014
TV Movie
Herself
Página 2
2013
TV Series
Herself
Charlie Rose
2007-2013
TV Series
Herself - Guest
The Hour
2009-2013
TV Series
Herself
Terms and Conditions May Apply
2013
Documentary
Herself - Science Fiction Author
Payback
2012/I
Documentary
Herself - Author
Surviving Progress
2011
Documentary
Herself - Author, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth
In the Wake of the Flood
2010
Documentary
Margaret Atwood
Late Review
2009
TV Series
Herself - Panelist
Turning Pages: The Life and Literature of Margaret Atwood