Why choose Margaret Atwood as the subject of a reading event to begin with?

Most of the books I read in school were written by men; that’s remarkable, but what I find even more remarkable is that someone else had to point out this fact to me. I expected to read canonical books in my English classes, and I accepted that most of those books were written by men. But in my final high school English course, a young teacher, who had a part-time contract, taught a Margaret Atwood poem, and after that I was inspired to read The Handmaid’s Tale and her other early novels.

None of those books were assigned reading in my university years either; as the 21st century approached, there were options to teach some women writers—their names appeared on the reading lists—but most of my professors opted for traditional selections. So, I read Chaucer and Shakespeare, I read Sterne and Swift: women writers were not writers whose work wasn’t prioritized to study.

Was that really so long ago? Less than three decades? Now young people do study The Handmaid’s Tale. And it seems like that book has been around forever. And that it’s always been recognized as important, if not prescient. But it’s easy to take it all for granted, to believe that women were always recognized as having the capacity to write and publish.

We must not overlook our literary grandmothers, those women who opened doors for other writers. Mr BIP once held the door for Margaret Atwood at the train station. I watched her hold the door at a neighbourhood coffee shop for the man who had just finished cleaning the window. But she’s also opened so many other doors for writers.

It’s not uncommon to see her name in the acknowledgments and authors’ notes written by Canadian authors from other generations, and she frequently recommends writers and books. Pre-internet, via newspaper and magazine articles. Now, on social media. If you follow her on Twitter, you’ll see: it seems like she reads and bookchats as much as she writes.

Here are links to the posts that participants have written to share in celebrating Margaret Atwood Reading Month:

The Edible Woman (1969) | Danielle, Laila, Paula, Rebecca

Surfacing (1972) | Ali, Bill, Lisa, Rebecca, Yasmine Rose

Dancing Girls (1977) | Mel

Life Before Man (1979) | Ali

Morning in the Burned House (1995) | Naomi

Bodily Harm (1981) | Paula

Murder in the Dark (1984) | Ali

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) | Naomi

Cat’s Eye (1988) | Bill, Marcie

Wilderness Tips (1991) | Rebecca, Lisa (Hairball), Lisa (True Trash)

The Robber Bride (1993) | Rebecca

Alias Grace (1996) | Lisa, Yasmine Rose

The Labrador Fiasco (1996) | Karen

The Blind Assassin (2000) | Laila, Rebecca

Negotiating with the Dead (2002 aka On Writers and Writing) | Karen

Oryx and Crake (2003) | Mel

Moving Targets aka Writing with Intent (2005) | Karen

The Penelopiad (2005) | Brona, Cathy, Madame Bibi, Mel

Moral Disorder (2006) | Ali, Rebecca

The Door (2007) | Rebecca

MaddAddam (2013) | Ali, Yasmine Rose

The Heart Goes Last (2015) | Madame Bibi

Hag-Seed (2016) | Ali, Helen

The Testaments (2019) | Brona, Iliana, Kay, Laila, Laura, Marcie, Naomi

Dearly (2020) | Naomi

Burning Questions (2022) | Brona