Guest Author - Sharon Cullars

Margaret Atwood once said in an interview with Mother Jones Online that an artist’s first loyalty is to her art, even though the artist’s political self may overlap into her work. And there is definitely an overlapping of social issues in Atwood’s stories, but she manages to naturally integrate her political views in a way that never approaches a preachiness or didacticism that bashes the reader over the head. In the same interview, she also stated: “People talking about politics usually start from the ass end backwards in that they think you have a political agenda, and then you make your work fit that cookie cutter. It's the other way around. One works by simple observation, looking into things. It's usually called insight and out of that comes your view…”

It is her insight that has made Atwood a much celebrated author. Both a novelist and short story writer, she is probably wider known for her 1986 novel, A Handmaid’s Tale, a speculative tale set in a future where the majority of the population has been rendered sterile and where a repressive state forces designated fertile women to breed against their wills. Atwood wrote the story during the Reagan era when a patent backlash against the women’s movement threatened to undo many of its gains. The tale conveyed Atwood's fears of where a society might head towards if extreme governmental fundamentalism usurped individual rights.

Atwood, a Canadian (like her contemporary, Alice Munro), is also a self-designated activist and feminist, as well as the former president of PEN (Poets, Essayists, Novelists) Canada, which assists writers worldwide who live under political oppression. Despite her activism, she chooses not to serve as a mouthpiece for any one group. What she writes about are her individual views. A feminist who sometimes diverges from the “feminist agenda”, she likes to present women as they really are, not as morally superior beings. She presents her tales almost like allegories where the protagonist is the "everywoman" who is oppressed by gender and politics, combining social realism, fantasy, parody, even mythology in her writings.

Growing up in the bush of northern Quebec as a child (her father was an etymologist) would provide the inspiration for many of the settings of Atwood’s tales, including Wilderness Tips (1998), a compilation of stories that coalesce past and present together, providing stories of various women whose lives are altered by death, deception, and disappointment. Wilderness Tips is just one of her recent collections; she has a body of work that has accumulated during her 30+ years of writing, including some anthologies of poetry. Other short story collections are Dancing Girls and Other Stories (1982), Murder in the Dark (1983) , Bluebeard’s Egg (1983) , and Good Bones and Simple Murders (1994) .

Here is an excerpt from "Gertrude Talks Back", a story included in Good Bones and Simple Murders. Also, you can find out more about Atwood at The Atwood Society's Margaret Atwood Information Site.