Margaret Atwood - 5 Pieces of Information

Future Library Project
Atwood was the first contributor to the Future Library Project with he novel 'Scribbler Moon'. The project aims to collect one original story by a popular writer every year until 2114. All the books will then be published in 2114 and will not be available to read until then. 

Honorary President of Birdlife Internationals Rare Bird Club
Atwood and her partner, Graeme Gibson, are joint honorary presidents of Birdlife International's Rare Bird Club. Birdlife International is one of the worlds largest nature conservation partnerships with over 10 million members and supporters and is largely considered the world leader in bird conservation. 

In our six intriguing years with BirdLife, we have been both astonished and inspired by what can be accomplished by a dedicated group with the passion, outreach, and professionalism of the BirdLife Partnerships. It is an amazing organisation.”
Margaret Atwood & Graeme Gibson, Joint Honorary Presidents of the BirdLife Rare Bird Club

Growing Up In The Wilderness
Atwood spent her childhood backpacking through the North Quebec Cutback due to her fathers forest entomology research. Her parents were very environmentally conscious and were early members of the Sierra Club (environmental organisation). She did not attend full time education until she was eight years old. 

Inventor of the Longpen
In 2004 Atwood conceived the concept of a remote robotic writing technology, the LongPen, that would allow a person to remotely write in ink anywhere in the world via tablet PC and the Internet, allowing her to conduct book tours without being physically present. She founded the company Unotchit Inc., to develop, produce and distribute her product. 


Book Covers
On occasion Atwood has designed and created the covers for some of her books including, Murder in the Dark, which was made out of a sunbathing ad in Vogue, The Circle Game, which was made out of sticker dots and Interlunar, a watercolour painting.

"Poets and artists shouldn't think too much about processes... it interrupts the work" - Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood - 5 Motifs

. Environmental Issues
. Feminism
. Speculative Fiction
. Politics
. Nature/Animals

In terms of motifs and reoccurring objects/symbols, I wasn't able to find much. Not because there isn't any in Atwoods writing but because I don't have the time to go through all of her books and pick out symbols or objects that reoccur so I chose themes/ideas that reoccur instead. 
Atwoods views on nature and the environment run almost parallel through her personal life and her work. From reading her books you can tell she is a writer greatly concerned with our relationship as humans with the world around us. This lines up with the fact that she is an environmental activist and spent a lot of her childhood exploring the forests with her family. 

Although she doesn't label her writing feminist, Atwood's books usually touch on feminist issues. She often portrays female characters dominated by the patriarchy in her novels and also sheds light on women's oppression as results from patriachal ideology.  

Atwood resists the idea that her writing is science fiction and in turn describes it as speculative fiction, the difference being that science fiction is about things we cannot do yet, and speculative fiction is about things that could really happen. 

"For me, the science fiction label belongs on books with things in them that we can't yet do.... speculative fiction means a work that employs the means already to hand and that takes place on Planet Earth." 

Oliver Sacks or Margaret Atwood

I'm completely at loss as to which author to choose for this brief, as usual, I can't make up my damn mind. I've always struggled to settle on a subject for a brief because I always think that i'm going to choose the wrong thing, and then my work won't be good enough and then I'll get bored of it all and then I'll just sit and struggle my way towards deadline as usual.

Oliver Sacks is so interesting to me, I love reading about neurological cases, the brain fascinates me and I always find myself enjoying reading/watching things that give me a bit more insight into how our minds work. Also, Oliver Sacks seems to be such an intelligent and kind mannered person, with a deep understanding and reflection of how our minds work. He was the first author I looked into, the one that immediately grabbed me BUT I worry that I won't be able to translate what I'm reading and learning about his life and work into something visual??

Maragaret Atwood's poetry is beautiful. I have yet to read any of her novels but after researching and looking into themes throughout her work I feel like I'd be quite interested in reading a couple of her novels. I've really enjoyed reading through her poetry and it's already started to conjure up little ideas in my head of how I could visually explore her work. BUT I worry that as I'm completely new to Atwood and her work maybe I'll get bored of her??

I suck at making decisions on things and really want to get a move on with this research project, I'm just struggling with who to settle on. I think I'm going to do a little more research on both authors and just make a decision and make the author work for me.

About the Author - Carl Sagan

Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, science populariser and science communicator. He is best known for his contributions to the scientific research of extraterrestrial life.

Sagan assembled the first physical messages sent into space: the Pioneer Plaque and the Voyager Golden Record, universal messages that could potentially be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find them.

The Voyager Golden Record - Contains 115 images including a calibration image along with a variety of natural sounds including noises made by thunder, waves etc and animals. It also features musicals selections from different countries and era's and spoken greetings in 59 different languages. 

The Pioneer Plaque - a pair of gold-anodised aluminium plaques which were placed onboard the 1972 Pioneer 10 and 1973 Pioneer 11 spacecraft featuring a pictorial message incase either spacecraft was intercepted by extraterrestrial life. The plaque included a hyperfine transition of neutral hydrogen, figures of a man and woman, relative position of the sun to the centre of the galaxy and 14 pulsars, the solar system and a silhouette of the spacecraft. 

He is the author/editor of more than 20 books including:
. The Dragons of Eden
. Broca's Brain
. Pale blue Dot
. Cosmos
. Contact

I love space, I love the idea that there's so much more than this little life on this little planet. I think thats what attracted me to Sagan the most really, just a chance to explore and delve deeper into space and astrology and hopefully learn some interesting things along the way.

About the Author - Margaret Atwood

Margaret Eleanor Atwood is  a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist and environmental activist. She is the author of more than 40 books of fiction, poetry and critical essays with themes within her work ranging from art and its creation to the dangers of ideology and sexual politics.

Feminism - Atwood often portrays female characters dominated by patriarchy in her novels and also sheds light on women's social oppression as a result of patriarchal ideology. Atwood does not class herself as a feminist writer and states that the label can only be applied to writers who work consciously within the framework of the feminist movement

Speculative/Social Science Fiction - Atwood resists the idea that some of her novels are science fiction, suggesting instead that they are speculative fiction, things/ideas 'which could actually happen'

Animals - Atwood repeatedly makes observations about our relationship with animals in her with reference to comparing people to animals and eating meat.

Longpen - Atwood is also the inventor of the Longpen, a robotic writing technology which would allow her to conduct her book tours without being physically present.

Notable works include:
.The Handmaids Tales
. Cat's Eye
. Oryx and Crake
. The Edible Woman


I was drawn to researching into Margaret Atwood as the themes throughout her work interested me as I was reading through them. I would also like to learn more about Atwood's role in environmental activism and try and get my hands on some of her poetry to have a look through.

About the Author - Oliver Sacks

"The Poet Laureate of Medicine" 

Dr. Oliver Wolf Sacks was a British neurologist, naturalist and author. His books contain a wealth of narrative detail about his experiences with patients and how they coped with their conditions as well as exploring and explaining how the brain deals with perception, memory and individuality. 

Oliver Sacks is set known for his collection of neurological case histories about his patients disorders and their experience of dealing with them. These include: 

. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat

. Tales of Music and The Brain

. An Anthropologist on Mars

. Awakenings

. Musicophillia

The books "Awakenings" tells the story of a group of extraordinary patients Dr Sacks encountered whilst working as a consulting neurologist for the Beth Abraham Hospital in The Bronx. The book recounts the life histories of a group of survivors of the 1920s sleepy sickness, encephalitis lethargica, who had been unable to move on their own for decades. His treatment of those patients became the basis of Sacks's book. The book inspired the play 'A Kind of Alaska' by Harold Pinter and was the basis for Oscar nominated feature film 'Awakenings' starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams. 

I was instantly fascinated by Oliver Sacks as soon as I started reading into his work and his life. I'm pretty interested in learning about how our minds work and how the brain functions so stuff like this is right up my street! 

I've already ordered the book 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat' even if I don't choose to focus on Sacks for this project I'm really interested into reading some of his work! Also, Awakenings is definitely, definitely worth the watch if you haven't already seen it!