Huron Expositor, 2016-06-08, Page 13CAREER TRAINING L
Wednesday, June 8, 2016 • Huron Expositor 13
Margaret Atwood discusses tales, short stories and Alice Munro at Blyth Festival
Laura Broadley
Postmedia Network
With her signature humour
and candidness, Margaret
Atwood took the stage at the
Blyth Festival on June 2 as a
part of the Alice Munro Festi-
val of the Short Story.
Atwood read a selection
from Revenant, a piece of
short fiction from her 10th
collection, Stone Mattress:
Nine Wicked Tales. It is the
story of three lives inter-
twined with a polarization
main character.
Dancing Girlswas Atwood's
first collection, which was
published in 1977 when she
was 38 -years -old. By that time
she was already established in
the publishing world having
10 collections of poetry and
three novels on the shelves.
Atwood was joined on the
Blyth stage by Merilyn
Simonds, another celebrated
Canadian author. The two
women met 20 years ago on
stage at a similar event in
Vancouver.
Simonds started off by ask-
ing
sking Atwood why she decided
to publish a collection of short
fiction in 1977 when she was
already established in so
many other genres.
"I started with stories,"
Atwood said. "I've been writ-
ing stories since high school"
Most publishers wanted a
novel written and published
before they would consider
investing in a collection of
short fiction. Some of the sto-
ries in Dancing Girls had been
written long before the collec-
tion was published, Atwood
said.
The short story was a popu-
lar genre in Canada in the
1960s because it was hard to
get novels published unless
the publisher was able to get a
UK or US company to co -pub-
lish. At that time the publish-
ing houses couldn't justify the
expense without a foreign
partner because Canadian
audiences weren't seen as
able to support the collection
on its own, Atwood said.
Atwood said she credits the
CBC Radio show Anthology
hosted by Robert Weaver as
helping short fiction and
poetry gain a wider audience
in Canada because he would
read them on air.
"Robert Weaver knew all
the writers in Canada. He was
Laura Broadley Postmedia Network
Margaret Atwood signed books for fans after reading from her
short fiction collection, Stone Mattress: Nine Wicked Tales at
the Blyth Festival theatre on June 2 as a part of the Alice Munro
Festival of the Short Story.
the common link that joined
writers across the country,"
Atwood said.
Alice Munro has also given
Weaver a lot of credit as he
was one of the first to publish
her stories.
Simonds asked Atwood
what the difference between
short pieces, short stories and
tales as those are the various
names of the works in
Atwood's collections.
Short pieces are not neces-
sarily prose, but can take the
form of short plays or narra-
tions. Short stories are realistic
pieces of fiction whereas tales
have a "fable dimension" to
them, Atwood explained.
In the early 1970s Atwood
and Munro were both gaining
a significant following for their
work among Canadians.
After World War Two most
of the preeminent writers
were men. The end of the
1950s and the beginning of
the 1960s saw the emergence
of more female writers like
Lucy Maud Montgomery and
Gabrielle Roy for Atwood and
Munro to lookup to.
"Those examples were
there for young women writ-
ers," Atwood said. "Alice, her-
self, says that she was inspired
early on by Emily of New
Moon:'
The second -wave women's
movement started in the early
1970s, which gave some
women the inspiration to
move away from just being
housewives. During that time
women writers received two
types of reviews.
"One was, early -wave wom-
en's movement people who
just decided it was part of that.
And the other one were other
people who said, `She'll grow
up and get over this phase"'
Atwood said.
Female writers have come
along way since the 1970s in
terms of the respect they gar-
ner in most genres, but there
are still sections of writing
where the female voice is still
stifled, like gaming, Atwood
said.
One of the last questions
Simonds asked Atwood came
from the audience, and was
about what projects she has
coming up.
Atwood has contributed to
the Hogarth Shakespeare pro-
ject, which has acclaimed
authors retell Shakespeare's
work. Atwood's novel is a
retelling of The Tempest,
which comes out in October
2016 and is called Hag -seed.
Atwood's graphic novel will
come out in the fall of 2016.
The novel started as a bird
conservation project as
domesticated cats are the big-
gest killers of migratory
songbirds
"How do we deal with
this without getting death
threats from cat owners?"
Atwood said. "The solution
is obvious. You devise a
superhero, which combines
cat and bird. Therefore it's
called Angel Catbird!'
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