“I dabble in modernity,” says legendary author Margaret Atwood on CBC’s George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight. Judging by her twitter following and her active participation in the development of new digital technologies, we think Atwood is being more than a little modest.

Lavin speaker Margaret Atwood, talking about the new documentary based on her book Payback. Via Salon.

Not only is Margaret Atwood an innovative author, she’s also innovative in the way she offers her works. In the case of the newly release science fiction book, In Other Worlds, a “revolutionary” new printing tech using hay is being employed to produce a limited run of 500 copies. In a sign of possible futures, the method utilizing wheat waste has the potential to leave 800 million trees standing annually.

nationalpost:

Margaret Atwood: How a love of comics started a love of reading
I learned to read early so I could read the comic strips because nobody else would take the time to read them out loud to me. The newspaper comics pages were called, then, the funny papers, although a lot of the strips were not funny but highly dramatic, like Terry and the Pirates, which featured a femme fatale called “The Dragon Lady” who used an amazingly long cigarette holder, or oddly surreal, like Little Orphan Annie — where were her eyes? The funny papers raised many questions in my young mind, some of which remain unanswered to this day. What exactly happened when Mandrake the Magician “gestured hypnotically”? Why did the Princess Snowflower character go around with a cauliflower on either ear?

Where did we kids discover the knowledge of flying capes, superpowers, other planets, and the like? In part, through the primitive comic-strip superheroes of the times, the most popular of which were Flash Gordon, for space travel and robots; Superman and Captain Marvel, for extra strength, superpowers, and cape-based flying; and Batman, who was a mortal, with a non-functional cape — one that must have encumbered him somewhat as he clawed his way up the sides of buildings — but who nonetheless shared with Captain Marvel and Superman a weak or fatuous second identity that acted as a disguise. (Captain Marvel was Billy Batson, the crippled newsboy; Superman was Clark Kent, the bespectacled reporter; Batman was Bruce Wayne, the very rich playboy who lounged around in a smoking jacket.)

Excerpt from In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination Copyright © 2011 by O.W. Toad Ltd. Published by Signal, imprint of McClelland & Stewart Ltd. (Photo: (Tyler Anderson/National Post)

Text from occupywriters.com. Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, and Rachel Rosenfelt (editor of The New Inquiry and one of Lavin’s college speaking agents) are among the literary figures who have signed.

Margaret Atwood’s latest, In Other Worlds: SF And The Human Imagination made The Atlantic’s list of 24 books to look forward to this fall.

From The Atlantic: 

The Booker Prize-winning novelist latest book focuses on her relationship with science fiction. Based on a set of lectures Atwood gave at Emory University, In Other Worlds traces her engagement with the genre, beginning in childhood, through her time in graduate school, and continuing with her work as a writer of fiction, which includes elements of science fiction.

Release date: October 11

Booker Prize-winning author Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin has been chosen as the inaugural selection for the Twitter-based 1book140 book club, hosted by The Atlantic. The organizers hope to spark global discussion on the book, 140 characters at a time. The choice is fitting, as few other established authors have taken to Twitter with the same zeal with which Atwood, a prolific tweeter, has.

Flavorpill recently compiled a list of ten books that “expose the darker side of humanity.” Second on the list is Margaret Atwood’s cautionary masterwork The Handmaid’s Tale.

If you take away the epilogue, this novel tells an unbelievably miserable story of confinement and misogynistic rule. In the near future, the United States is overthrown by the pernicious Sons of Jacob, who then establish the Republic of Gilead. The bank accounts of women and other undesirables are frozen, and a group known as Handmaids become the hosts for the future children of the ruling class. Atwood’s prose is beautiful and chilling, as always.

Photo above, of Margaret Atwood writing The Handmaid’s Tale in Berlin, via A Perfect Commotion