Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood, born 1939 in Ottawa, Canada, is a force to be reckoned with in 20th and 21st Century literature. She grew up in northern Ontario and Quebec and in Toronto. Her education was Canadian with a salting of graduate work at Radcliffe and Harvard in the US. She can turn a skilled hand to short stories, poetry, essays and reviews, and novels. She is an enthusiastic transgressor of categories, so-called literary genres, and she is generous with introductions, forewords, and prefaces to other writers. She wants to comprehend it all, and she wants her readers to keep up.
I was very fortunate to support Atwood when she gave a talk at Dickinson College, providing books and sales support after her presentation. We had a chance to really talk. I was amazed by her sophisticated grasp of the book business (most writers really don’t care, which I think is odd). She was keen, alert, full of questions, interested. We seemed to hit it off as cousin-professionals. I always appreciate her for it and am grateful for her generosity.
On Cats: An Anthology
On Cats: An Anthology
‘I have put myself on a list for two Siberian kittens. I will have cat hammocks. I will have scratching posts. I will not allow myself to be distressed by shredded upholstery,’ writes Margaret Atwood in her introduction to this beautifully illustrated anthology on cats.
For thousands of years, cats have been venerated and mistrusted in equal measure. Through memoir, fiction, letters and poems, the writers in these pages celebrate cats and their curious ways. As Hemingway wrote, ‘one cat leads to another.’
Includes contributions from Alice Walker, Edward Gorey, Mary Gaitskill, Caitlin Moran, Ernest Hemingway, Nikola Tesla, John Keates, Muriel Spark, Lynne Truss, Hilaire Belloc, Guy du Maupassant, Rebecca West and more.
Plus: photography by Elliot Ross.
This anthology, a companion volume to the hugely popular On Dogs: An Anthology, introduced by Tracey Ullman, is introduced by Margaret Atwood, author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels.