Margaret Atwood: Mirth and Writing Magic with Canada's Favorite Author

Here's something remarkable and not in a good way. Disengaged employees cost US companies almost $1.9 trillion a year. That's a lot of zeros. Why? Because when teams lack the right skills, productivity declines, turnover increases, and strategies stagnate. But it doesn't have to be that way. At Project Management Institute, home of the PMP and globally recognized certifications, your people can learn to collaborate, deliver on time, and actually get things the cost of not upskilling way higher than the investment Project Management Institute. Find the answers@pmi.org. Getting an interview with Margaret Atwood was a lesson from the Handmaid's Tale. Atwood and I spoke at the same event, but the host organization prevented me from talking to her, even threatening me a little. Nevertheless, I persisted. Atwood was brilliant and funny. At the event, you can tell if a person is smart by her level of wit. The more acerbic, the smarter. Atwood is off the charts. After being thwarted at the event, I told the story to my best friend in Canada, Amber McArthur. She knew both Atwood and her agent and helped make the interview happen a few weeks later. So this is Margaret Atwood, writer, poetry speaker, and predictor of the future. Two time Booker Award winner. By the way, this podcast contains a touch of profanity. Yes, that's right. Atwood let an F bomb fly. She is an inspiration to everyone who is trying to resist a dystopian, theocratic, fascist society. All I can say is thank God, the living, sympathetic, empathetic, inclusive, truthful God for Margaret Atwood. This is Guy Kawasaki, the and this is remarkable people. And now here is Margaret Atwood. Would your English teacher in high school say, I knew Margaret Atwood would be this kind of writer, this kind of success?

Okay, I had a couple of English teachers in sky high school.

Would any of them think that?

Okay, so my favorite was called Ms. Florence Medley. Ms. Lawrence Medley had long white floating hair and she used to revolve in a circle while reciting Kubla Khan from memory. She made a deep impression on me and they came back years ago to do a documentary section on me once I was quote famous and they asked her that English teacher question and she said quite admirably, she showed no particular promise in my class. So usually of course you get oh yes, I knew it once, she was so talented, etc. But, but in this case Ms. Florence Medley was correct. I wasn't showing any particular talent in her class. I was too busy watching her revolve around circle. But my next English teacher called Ms. Bessie Billings was quite keen on what I was by then writing. And I wrote a short story about Ms. Bessie Billings, her real name and it is called My Last Duchess. And that was her teaching style. She was, she was quite a famous English teacher. She sort of hauled you by the back hairs through the curriculum that we had to do in order to pass this terrifying set of exams that was going on in the 50s. And she was awfully good at it.

And would she say I kept touch.

With her in later years and she was very keen on my then accomplishments. But she's also the one who famously said about a poem of mine that I showed her. Well, I can't stand. I can't understand a word of this, dear, so it must be good.

Okay. I love that story.

Wait a minute. No, I don't think so. Yes, anyway, she. She was quite encouraging. I've.

I've written, I've seen and read things where you say you knew you wanted to be a writer at 16.

Yes, I did, but of course I was quite ignorant of what that might involve. I knew nothing about publishing. I knew nothing about any of the processes. And that was because Canada in those years was very much a backwater and we hardly had a native publishing industry then.

Well, if you had known what you were getting into, would you have continued?

Probably, yes, but more advisably. I mean, I was lacking in knowledge of anything. But I went and got a copy of Writer's Market and Writers Markets listed at the back all of the kinds of writing that you could sell and how much you would get paid for it. And none of them were the kinds of things that I really wanted to do. But it was. It was basically magazine markets and the ones that paid the most were true romance magazines. So I thought, I can do this. Wrong. As it turned out, I couldn't. I thought I was going to write true romance stories of the kind. The magazine would have a girl with a tear coming out of her eye on them in the foreground. And then there would be a different girl with a young man in the background. And that was the plot. Oh God, I thought I could do this, but you actually have to have a. You can't just do it cold. As it turns out, I could think of the plots, but I could not. I could not believe in them.

And how did you make this transition?

From what to what?

Well, from, you know, reading magazines about romance novels to becoming what you are.

Okay, well, the romance novel, the true romance stories were a failure. That was not going to be how I was going to make my living. So I did end up after a flirtation with being a journalist, from which I was dissuaded by a second cousin who really was a journalist. And he said, if you work for a newspaper, you will write the ladies pages and the obituary. Remember, it was the mid-50s. So I thought, well, I don't want to do that. So I hide hoed off to university and took English literature. Sa.

I. I have written 15 books. I know you've written about 60, but I'm very curious about your craft of writing. So do you use a computer? Do you write on longhand? How do you.

I, I usually kick off in longhand because that is in fact how I learned. And my wrong career choice in high school was that I didn't take touch typing. I should have taken something called secretarial sciences and that would have been typing in shorthand. But I did not.

You know a funny story, I can tell you that Jane Goodall took secretarial skills when she was young and that enabled her to get a job with the Leakeys, which enable. Enabled her to get to Africa and the rest is history. So.

Well, you see that, that is, I believe that. And I can see how that all would have worked. But I, I thought I was going to go into home economics, so I was in that stream rather than the secretarial science. So you want, you want your zipper fixed? I can do that for you. To this day I just, I just can't touch type.

But I saw you using a Macintosh. You looked okay with the.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's four fingers though.

Okay.

So I have to look and, and computers were a great help to me because you can correct those typos.

Do you. So you never work from an outline? You just start writing complete sentences?

Yeah, I, I did try working from an outline once. It was a failure. So once, once I'm quite thoroughly into it, I start pushing things around and rearranging them and that starts looking like a pattern. But I need to get in first.

How do you push things around and rearrange them if they're all on paper?

Well, it used to be called cutting and pasting. We actually use scissors and scotch tape or paste. So you can cut chunks of type out and stick them in other places? You can do that on a computer quite easily, yes.

Do you have a discipline where you get up in the morning and you write first before you get distracted?

I would really like to have all those things you're supposed to have, but it's too Late, I'm afraid. It's pretty haphazard. Planes are good, trains are good, if they're not too rattly, because there's no distractions. You got it, huh?

Yeah. When people ask me, well, where do you ride? I usually tell them, well, United 3A is my best place, so. Which is a lot. It's a lot better than United 35J.

So you like the window seat?

Yeah, I do.

Yeah. I'm with you. Yes, I like the windows seat too.

And do you work with a content editor or someone breathing on your neck, or you just turn it in and say, you know, I marked it out?

No, I finished the manuscript, I finished the draft. Okay. Then it goes to two kinds of people. My agent and editors on the one hand, and on the other hand, people who just like to read books and.

They tell you what. And what happens?

They tell me, depending on what's in the book, I sometimes get experts in the field. So for instance, when I had a book with history, 19th century History of Toronto in it, I had a friend who is a historian, and he read it and he said, that's not who was in Toronto at that time. There weren't any Italians, but there were some Germans. So I changed the demographics, things like that. Or, for instance, I wrote a book in which the narrator was a young man with commitment issues. So I got a reader who was a young man with commitment issues to see what he thought of it. And he said the following. He gave me two tips. He said, first of all, don't say, what in the fuck, say what the fuck? And second, he said, that's not how you smoke a joint. But then I said, but what do you think of the. You know, how did I do the character? What do you think of that? And he said, well, then he said, how did you know? So I took that as a yes, But. But earlier on I had. I had another male narrator, and I gave it to the man, and he gave me a very good tip, which I wouldn't have thought of. He said, you cannot shave off a full beard with an electric razor. Ah.

So you have to cut it with a scissors first?

Well, you have to cut it with a straight razor. That'll take it off. But if you start with the electric razor, it'll just get all snarled up. So electric razors are just good for close shapes. And I'm surprised you didn't know that.

Well, you know, what can I say? I could never grow a beard. I just. I don't have enough to grow.

Now you've Never had to have that experience.

You know, I learned something every. Every day, Margaret. So.

Yeah, no, so did I. And luckily I could then change that part of the text because, you know, if you make a mistake like that, you're going to get a lot of once upon a time letters now.

Yeah.

Social media beginning. You idiot. Don't you know anything?

I'm going to read you a short passage from Handmaid's Tale. So she was fumbling in her robe for her pass, and they thought she was hunting for a bomb. They thought she was a man in disguise. So basically you wrote that, you know, 30 some odd years ago.

Yep. Yeah.

And you know, like, how do you come up with something like that that was like, it's you, George Orwell and Arthur C. Clarke. I mean, what special gift do you possess that makes you come up with something like that?

It's nothing new. It's patterns that repeat. So George L. Orwell called his book 1984 because essentially he was writing about 1948, writing about Stalinism, and he was writing about what. What that would feel like if it were in England. And Arthur C. Clarke. Are you thinking of Hal the computer or which of his creations?

Yeah, that one. Yes, Hal.

I mean, yeah, well, people were already worried about that.

Yeah.

And Fahrenheit 451, another one.

Yep.

So I read a lot of those books in the 50s.

So are you saying that it's not a special gift, you were just observant of history?

I think it's a special interest. Okay, special interest. So you, if you have that special interest, you are noticing things that other people might not be aware of or attracted to or might not notice. If you're interested in dogs, you're going to notice all the dogs on the street, and other people might just not see them. If you're interested in fascisms and authoritarianisms, you were interested in the symptoms I will offer you.

If you ever write a book where there's an aspect of tech or nerds or geeks or Silicon Valley, I'll be happy to be your reader to tell.

You I know some of them already. I even know some girl ones.

It's not the Macintosh, it's Macintosh, for example.

Exactly. Yes. No. Well, yes, I have some of those in my family.

I volunteer. Okay. Do you see?

You weren't a coder.

No, not at all. I was. I was an evangelist. And not evangelical. Okay, evangelist. So my job.

You're a frontman.

I take that as the insult. You meant it. But it was my job to convince people to write Macintosh software and hardware for the Macintosh division.

So come into our company and do this thing.

Yes.

So I got my first one when they. When they just had floppy disks. They had the tiny little window and they had the floppy disk that would get stuck, and then you would have to use the hairpin to get them out.

Oh, you're bringing back memories. Yes, yes.

Well, you know about how the paper clip. No, no.

You mean the paperclip that you unbend to stick into the hole to pop.

Okay. So once upon a time on one of the programs, there was a little guy in a box who would come and dance around on the screen when you were having problems, and he would particularly say things like, you seem to be trying to write a letter. How may I help you? And then he would jump up and down. It was a cartoon image, but there was another one called hal, the paperclip that would similarly appear and try to give you a hand. It had a great big googly. You don't remember this?

No. Maybe I never had trouble.

Maybe you didn't. Yes. I never said I got that program, but I did, just to get the little guy in the box. And I was quite fond of it.

That's funny. That's funny. Do you think the impact of fiction is increasing or decreasing, what with all the social media and everything else that's happening?

Fiction, Fiction. I think it's increasing.

And why?

Why? Well, it seems everybody wants to be a writer.

Yeah.

So I refer you to a social platform called wattpad. You know about it.

It's like a platform for people to write books and they help you structure.

It's a story sharing site. So they typically write in installments. They're typically quite young, and they can do it on their phones. And it has a huge membership. So I think of those kinds of things as literacy aids. So they help people to be interested in reading and writing.

I have to say, I'm so impressed. You know all about that kind of stuff. And in your talk at the Facebook event, you talked about a product called. I think it's Stasher or Stash. It's that plastic sandwich bag that you.

S t a S H e r Stasher. Yeah. Highly recommended.

I know. When you. When you mentioned that, I know people who know the people at Stasher, I said, oh, you got to tell them that Margaret talked about your program. I mean, your. Your product. On.

On. I could be an influencer. Just thinking that you could.

You could be the new Kim Kardashian. It's never too late.

Dole myself up and do YouTubes and, and sell a hot new product.

It's, it's never too late.

Well, I don't know.

Do you, do you think that particularly with Handmaid's Tale, do you think that serialized TV is the new novel?

Serialized TV is the new cinemaplex movie. Cineplex movie with surround sound. It is, it is a format that enables novels that have been translated to the screen to be the length they really are. So with 90 minutes, if you take War and Peace and try to get into 90 minutes, you're going to have a problem. Yes, any sort of long novels. And a lot of 19th century novels were long because they were essentially like long serial TV shows. You couldn't read the whole thing at one setting, so you would read it in installments. And the, the serialized web streamed format is much better for them than trying to cram them into a 90 minute film.

Okay.

So it's given a whole new lease of life to the filming of long novels. Game of Thrones, just for example, I mean it's a, it's a multi volume series. You could never get, you never be begin to get it into 90 minute film.

Which gives you greater satisfaction. Someone who reads the Handmaid Tale or.

Someone who watches it, you know, it actually doesn't matter because once you've finished your work and send it out into the world, you're not there when people are watching or reading. The person whose satisfaction counts at that point is theirs.

What does the Margaret Atwood binge watch?

What do I watch?

Binge watch in the sense that you watch the.

What do I binge watch? Okay, so right now I'm watching and an older one called Benedict Cumberbatch playing Sherlock Holmes from a while ago. But what my pals are all telling me that I have to watch is something called the Crown. They're very keen on it. And I have stored up something called the Wire, which I'm told by younger people I probably won't understand. I'm willing to give it a try.

The Wire, as in the thing in Baltimore about the prison and the drug trade and all that?

Yeah, yeah, that one.

Okay.

Yeah. And they say it's very rapid fire.

Yes, it is. Yes, it is. You know, Margot, right Now we're at 29 minutes and I was told 20 minutes. So I don't know if, you know, I don't want to wear out my welcome. I have more questions for you.

But you don't, you don't want to hear about how I. My computer on a plane by mistake because I was watching Captain Underpants.

I'll take that story anytime.

I got it back. I got it back. You did, Did. Thanks to the magic of direct message on Twitter.

And okay, so this is a good story in and of itself because typically it takes days and days. It has to flow from the maintenance department to the lost and found. And lost and found has to categorize it. And. And how long did it take you?

Well, you are obviously not a person of modern time.

I beg to differ. So how long did it take you?

It took me two hours.

What airline is this? I'm going to start flying on that airline.

Okay. So the secret is. And I found this out when I had to escape a blizzard in England. Just keep in mind that they don't have snow tires there, nor snow plows at the Norwich airport, which was where we were stuck. So we actually joy rode with some other cash paying people in a taxi to Heathrow.

Yeah.

Off to the last plane out. So we had been going to go from. From there to. To Amsterdam on klm. So I needed to get my KLM ticket money back. And I was told by them the best way to do that is through direct messaging, not through some form you fill out. Because direct Messaging is manned 247 or person 24 7, because if there's a horrible thing happening, they need to be able to deal with it right now. So instead of going on the online form that was not going to get it back, I direct messaged Air Canada and these charming people responded to me with many a smiling face and thumbs up sign. And we drove out Italy, and somebody met us right there at arrival.

Oh, my God.

There, there it was.

Well, Margaret, I think being the verified Twitter account of the real Margaret Atwood may have had something to do with that.

That's Instagram. Yeah. And Twitter. I'm just Margaret Atwood.

You're not verified on Twitter.

I am verified, but not as the real.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

No, I had to kick out. I had to kick a couple of other Margaret that was off when I joined. They were pretending to be me.

Huh.

They weren't being unpleasant, but they were being much more sentimental than I would be.

Well, by that stretch of the imagination. Does fan fiction bother you then?

A lot of classic literature has been in fact fan fiction.

Yes.

So Shakespeare's turmoil is in Cressida. It's fan fiction. And it was just. It was normal for hundreds of years for people to redo earlier myths and stories.

Yeah.

So now it doesn't bother me at all. Okay. Because. Let it rip.

Do you think that Shakespeare was a woman?

Don't be silly.

Well, there is that theory.

I don't think Shakespeare is Francis Bacon, and I don't think Shakespeare was the Earl of something or other. I think Shakespeare was exactly who Ben Jones and said he was his actor, director, producer, who worked in early Elizabethan theater.

Okay, okay. Just checking. I. I saw in many of your interviews that you are a staunch agnostic, so.

I know I'm a strict agnostic.

Okay, Strict.

What does that mean? What it means is that you cannot present as knowledge something that is actually belief. And that's what it means, period.

Okay, so with that, that eliminates a lot. What is your moral compass?

Oh, my moral compass is a different thing. That's not a question of. Of knowledge. That's a matter of how you were brought up. Okay, so I was brought up by pretty. I wouldn't say strict, but people who did believe that honesty was the best policy.

So it's your. It's your parental influence.

Oh, I would. I would say most people do. Don't you?

Yes, yes, absolutely.

Yeah. I think there are two questions you should ask of any. Any proposition or. Or situation that comes before you of a problematic nature. And the first question is, is it true? And if it is true, is it fair?

Fair in the sense of just.

Is it just?

Okay.

Is it fair?

I think by those two questions, we can answer almost any question. Right.

We can certainly interrogate anything that comes before us.

Yes. Yes.

So if the answer to is it true Is no, it's not true, then you can also then say, if it's not true. Is it fair that people are acting as if it is true? Is it fair that they're doing these things even though it's not true? So was it true that 19 people were practicing witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts? No, it was not true. Was it fair that they got hanged? No, it was not fair. Is it true that women are intellectually inferior by nature of their gender to men and capable of nothing but gibberish and can't reason? No, it is not true. Is it therefore fair that they should be treated that way? No, it is not fair. Do you get the gist? Is it true that all men are rapists? No, it is not true that all men are rapists. Is it fair to treat them as if they are? No, it is not fair.

Do you think that all men are flawed?

All people are flawed? Okay, why is it all people are flawed? Men are people, therefore all men are flawed. That's absolutely.

Yeah.

All People are flawed. All women are people, therefore all women are flawed.

So we're all flawed.

Why is this a problem? Nobody's perfect.

Do you think that bad people create bad times or bad times create bad people?

Oh, it's a feedback loop. Some of both.

So do you see a way out of this mess that we're in?

Of course.

And?

Well, I'm thinking of doing something called the Blog of Hope. And on the Blog of Hope, I will put all of the hopeful things and all of the ways out of the mess. Now, by mess, which particular bit of the mess are you talking about? Because it's multifaceted mess.

Misogynism, racism, women's rights being trampled on, anti intellectualism, anti science.

You know, just that particular mess.

The whole shooting match.

Well, let's just cut to the chase and say unless we solve the warming and acidification of the oceans, none of that's going to matter.

True.

Okay, so. So that's one way out. We all die. Next question.

The ultimate solution, so to speak.

The rest of it, let's just take the women's rights part. I believe in working for structural change. And that is why we did the launch of the Testaments with an organization called Equality Now. And Equality now works on changing laws that have to do with women and girls to make them fairer and more equitable. So that's one of the ways that you address the mass. You can't legislate a change in people's opinions, but by changing laws to make them fairer, you give people the idea that it's more right than not right to treat people in this fair way.

I want to thank you. Of course, I also want to thank you. I want to reiterate my offer to somehow connect you and Jane Goodall, because, my God, you two would just rock the earth and love each other.

Yeah, we already love each other.

And my last statement to you, of course, besides my gratitude, is that I do believe that you are a Canadian who has the right to brag, okay?

Oh, you think so?

Absolutely.

I may have the right, but I'm also quite prudent. I know that that would come at a cost.

This was a delightful interview to conduct. I love Atwood's message and appreciate her efforts to prevent the end of the world. Her latest book is the Testaments. It won Atwood her second book award. Read it and spread its message to help prevent making America Gilead again. This is Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable people. Mahalo to Amber McArthur and Lucia Sino for making this interview happen. No thanks to the people who prevented access to Atwood in Canada. This podcast was produced by Jeff Sien, marketing goddess Peg Fitzpatrick. Next week's guest is Wee man, the star of Jackass, the MTV and movie series, and the only guests who questioned the existence of this podcast. This is remarkable, people.