A special collection includes readings from A Sad Child; All Bread; Flowers; King Lear in Respite Care; The Loneliness of the Military Historian; The Moment; This Is a Photograph of Me; Variation on the Word Sleep; Werewolf Movies; and You Begin. Fortunately, all clippings are located at the same site: http://www.owtoad.com/sound.html. All clippings are in “.mp3” format and all readings are clear and crisp. The researcher will definitely feel Margaret Atwood’s presence.
Additional poetry readings can be found at http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetry-archive/singlePoet.do?poetId=96. In this case, the text of each poem has been conveniently provided along with the sound clipping. The researcher can read the poem while listening to Atwood’s voice. Available are The Immigrants, King Lear in Respite Care, The Moment, and Siren Song.
Speeches and Lectures
The Waterstone’s Poetry Lecture (http://www.owtoad.com/writingpoetry.html) was delivered at Hay on Wye, Wales, in June 1995. In it Atwood discusses her life as a poet. In another speech given in 1994 and entitled Spotty-Handed Villainesses (http://www.owtoad.com/villainesses.html), she discusses female bad behavior in various literary genres.
Study Guides
There is Paul Brians’s (1995a) work, “Study Guide to Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid’s Tale,” which is a chapter-by-chapter analysis of the book (http://www.wsu.edu:8000/~brians/science_fiction/handmaid.html). Brians is a professor in the department of English, Washington State University, and has produced this guide to aid his students with their learning experience (Brians, 1995b).
Also available is Gabriele Twohig’ lengthy thesis (http://www.linse.uni-essen.de/esel/atwood.htm). Her emphasis is on the creativity and power through language as it relates to the presentation and contents of The Handmaid’s Tale (Twohig, 1998).
Finally, there is Random House’s Book Group Corner (http://www.randomhouse.com/resources/bookgroup). With such a name, one would expect to find this site classified among discussion groups. This is not the case. Book Group Corner provides companions to various literary works published by many authors. In the case of Margaret Atwood, information on nine of her novels has been incorporated: Alias Grace, Bodily Harm, Cat’s Eye, The Edible Woman, The Handmaid’s Tale, Lady Oracle, Life Before Man, The Robber Bride, and Surfacing.
Typically, these companions are comprised of summaries, letters, and suggested readings from Atwood herself, reviews, and personal comments from interested readers as well as thought-provoking questions and topics that interested parties can discuss. Such proposed questions may prove extremely useful to the student writing a school paper, as they may give rise to new ideas and lead to new directions in thinking.
Discussion Groups
Discussion groups are always interesting. They allow people to exchange views while using the Internet as the medium.
The Margaret Atwood Group is a discussion group in which Margaret Atwood enthusiasts can freely participate. To sign up, one needs only to go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Margaret_Atwood/. Anyone is welcome to join and instructions on how to sign up and post messages are supplied at the site.
Another discussion group exists at Atwood-L. It is sponsored by the Margaret At-wood Society. To subscribe, send your mail to [email protected]. Leave the subject line empty but enter “subscribe atwood-l [yourfirstname yourlastname]” in the message content.
LongPen
It would not be appropriate to close a chapter on Internet resources concerning Margaret Atwood without the special mention of a new and amazing product: LongPen. This is a remote signing device, the idea of which came to Atwood at 4:00 in the morning during one of her stays at the Drake Hotel in Toronto (Atwood, 2006).
This portable device enables a person in, say, a bookstore, to make a specific autograph request to a writer while having a conversation with that writer via a two-way screen and camera system. In other words, both Atwood and the reader can watch and talk to each other; she from the comfort of her home and the reader from another location. Margaret Atwood would then write the requested autograph on an electronic tablet. The result would simultaneously be observed by the person making the request. If corrections are necessary, they can be done before printing begins. When the autograph is satisfactory, the requester places a book underneath a remotely operated mechanical arm and the print job is initiated. The robotic arm writes the signature and autograph in Margaret Atwood’s handwriting, exactly how she had scribed it from her home. As of now, this innovative and fascinating invention can sign books, CDs, hockey sticks, contracts, and agreements.
For more information, a visit to http://www.unotchit.com/index.html will reveal the full capability of this device. Here, anyone can watch video recordings in which Margaret Atwood explains how this invention came to be, as well as its variety of uses. The videos are available in both QuickTime and Windows Media formats (http://www.unotchit.com/watch-the-videos.html).
References
Atwood, M. “On Writing Poetry: Waterstone’ Poetry Lecture.” O.W. Toad, Inc. 1995. 25 May 2006.
Atwood, M. “O.W. Toad: Margaret Atwood Reference Site.” O.W. Toad, Inc. 2005. 7 June 2006.
Atwood, M. “Spotty-Handed Villainesses: Problems of Female Bad Behaviour in the Creation of Literature.” O.W.Toad, Inc. 1994. 25 May 2006.
Atwood, M. “What Is LongPen?” Unotchit, Inc. 2006. 26 June 2006.
Bloom, M. “Internet Research Made Easy.” Writing 27.3 (2004): 18-21.
Brians, P. “Study Guide to Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid’s Tale.” Washington State University. 1995a. 21 May 2006.
Brians, P. “About These Guides.” Washington State University. 1995b. 26 June 2006.
Friedman, T., and The Margaret Atwood Society. “The Margaret Atwood Society.” The Margaret Atwood Society. 2005. 30 May 2006.
Goodman, B. “Margaret Atwood: WWW Resources.” Minnesota State University. 2004. 5 June 2006.
Gussow, M. “The Alternate Personalities in an Author’s Life and Art.” New York Times. 30 December 1996: Section C: Page 9: C2.
Hysell, S. G. “MLA International Bibliography of Books and Articles on the Modern Languages and Literature.” ARBA 33 (2002): 472.
Jacso, P. “Rating the Metasearch Engines.” Information Today 18.11 (2001): 28-29.
Jokinen, A. “Luminarium Margaret Atwood Page” Luminarium 20 February 2007.
Lanpher, K. “Talking Volumes, Margaret Atwood.” Midmorning on Minnesota Public Radio. 9 May 2003. Twin Cities, MN. 15 May 2006.
Margaret Atwood Society. “The Margaret Atwood Society.” The Margaret Atwood Society. 20 February 2007.
McGarvey, R. “Search Us, Says Google.” Technology Review 103.6 (2000): 108-113.
Miller, L. “Margaret Atwood on Famous Victorian Murderesses, Her Claim to Connecticut, and the Deep Satisfaction of a Clean, Folded Towel.” Salon January 1997. 25 May 2006.
Mossberg, W. S., and K. Boehret. “What You Should Know about Web Searches.” Wall Street Journal—Eastern Edition 246.140 (2005): D1-D6.
O.W. Toad Ltd. “O.W. Toad: Margaret Atwood Reference Site.” O.W. Toad, Inc. 2006. 15 May 2006.
Richards, L. “Margaret Atwood.” January Magazine November 2000. 25 May 2006.
Snell, M. “Margaret Atwood.” Mother Jones 7 July 1997. 25 May 2006.
Swain, D. “Audio Interview with Margaret Atwood.” Wired for Books 10 February 1986. 10 April
2007.
Thompson. R. H. “Interview with Margaret Atwood.” Interviews with Authors of Modern Arthurian Literature. Ed. R. H. Thompson. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester, 1991. 15 May 2006.
Twohig, G. “The Politics of Language: A Device of Creativity and Power in Margaret Atwood’s Novel The Handmaid’s Tale.” Universitat GH Essen, 1998. 25 May 2006.
Unotchit, Inc. “LongPen: Writing Around the World.” Unotchit, Inc. 2006. 26 June 2006.
About the Authors
Dr. Shannon Hengen, professor and chair of English at Laurentian University in Sud-bury, Ontario, Canada, has published books, chapters in books, articles, and reviews of Margaret Atwood’s work over approximately twenty years. In addition to seminars on Atwood, she teaches modern and contemporary writers in English, particularly those of North America, with a focus on female poets and dramatists, and in an interdisciplinary MA in Humanities.
Mr. Ashley Thomson is a librarian at Laurentian University and has coauthored or co-edited seven previous books: The Directory of Canadian Private Residential Schools (Toronto: Methuen, 1986); The Bibliography of Ontario History, 1976-1986 (Toronto: Dundurn, 1989); Temagami: A Debate on Wilderness (Toronto: Dundurn, 1990); At the End of the Shift: Mines and Single-Industry Towns in Northern Ontario (Toronto: Dun-durn, 1992); Sudbury: Rail Town to Regional Capital (Toronto: Dundurn, 1993); The Bibliography of Northern Ontario, 1966-1991 (Toronto: Dundurn, 1994); The Handbook of Canadian Boarding Schools (Toronto: Dundurn, 1999).
Margaret Atwood Page 68