I was the plus one on a special “friends pass” to hear Margaret Atwood in the Texas State Capitol during the book festival. I’d heard other writers speak at this venue before, but always from the nosebleed section.
While rifling through her things to get notebook and pen ready, my friend dropped one of my business-card sized Austin Writers Roulette flyers out of her bag. The solution? Decorate her hat with it! If only I could make that a fashion trend. After four years, some people have actually heard of my show.
Here’s what I learned from Margaret Atwood, who is also a teacher, a common trait among us writers that must stem from always reading, writing and wanting to shed light on the uninformed:
- She has participated in many writing experiments to keep herself creatively challenged.
- One such writing experiment: she sealed her writing in a box, along with a number of other writers and transported the box to Norway where trees have been planted. By the end of a century, the boxes will be opened and the paper to print it on will come from the trees that were planted a century ago.
- She claimed that politicians make decisions without considering long-term consequences. As a result, some laws have been reversed because they cost too much.
- My favorite quote from her talk was: “Access to books and reading is one of the cornerstones of democracy.”
- She wrote for “Zombie Run,” an interactive audio story where runners are encouraged speed up and slow down, according to the story. Her episode of the story took place in Toronto. The government and hockey team have been zombified.
- Her sage advice to a Literature and Composition instructor of a college freshman class who were loathe to read and were mostly business and engineer majors: have them write a business plan for how zombies and vampires can accumulate wealth over time.
I guess one of the biggest take aways from hearing her interview was that I should keep my teaching license current in addition to creating my other art outside of teaching.