3D mock up of the book cover for The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
Festival stageUpcoming

It isn't prophecy, it's filing

with Margaret Atwood, Novelist & poet

Date
Wed, August 26, 2026
Time
local
Venue
Edinburgh International Book Festival, Edinburgh, UK

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What happens in the room

Atwood on her clipping files, on being called a prophet, and on the archive behind the invention.

How it went

The line of the season, delivered flatly, to eleven hundred people: "It isn't prophecy, it's filing." It is now on our poster.

About Margaret Atwood

  • Booker Prize, 2000
  • Booker Prize, 2019
  • Arthur C. Clarke Award, 1987

Atwood has published more than fifty books across six decades, fiction, poetry, essays and graphic novels, and still begins in longhand in the morning. She grew up partly in the bush of northern Quebec, an upbringing she credits for both her practicality and her interest in what people do when systems fail.

Listen to episode 124

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Also with Margaret

3D mock up of the book cover for The Blind Assassin by Margaret AtwoodIn conversationUpcoming

The Blind Assassin · McClelland & Stewart, 2000

Longhand at eighty six: a morning of pages

with Margaret Atwood, Novelist & poet

Booker Prize, 2000

Date
Tue, January 27, 2026
Time
local time
Venue
Toronto Reference Library, Toronto, CA

Atwood on six decades of bad first pages, and why she stopped waiting for a good mood some time in the 1970s.

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3D mock up of the book cover for The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret AtwoodReading & Q&AUpcoming

The Handmaid's Tale · McClelland & Stewart, 1985

Winning twice: on prizes and the work after them

with Margaret Atwood, Novelist & poet

Booker Prize, 2000

Date
Wed, June 24, 2026
Time
local time
Venue
Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, UK

Atwood reads from The Blind Assassin and takes questions on what a prize does and doesn't change.

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