Keynote Speaker | two-time Booker Prize-winning Author of over 50 books, including The Handmaid’s Tale
MARGARET ATWOOD has long been a literary titan, but “current events have polished the oracular sheen of her reputation” (The New Yorker). With her 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale adapted into a fifteen-time Emmy award-winning television series, and its sequel, The Testaments, winning the 2019 Booker Prize, Atwood’s sharp eye is more crucial—and prescient—than ever. Additionally, Atwood’s Giller-winning, Booker-shortlisted murder mystery Alias Grace is now streaming on Netflix, and was notably written, produced, and directed by women. Atwood is the author of more than fifty volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction. She is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman, The Robber Bride, The Blind Assassin, Oryx and Crake, and The Year of the Flood. The Oryx and Crake trilogy is being adapted into an HBO TV series. To date, Atwood’s body of work has been published in more than 40 languages. Atwood has also won many international literary awards, including the prestigious Booker Prize, Arthur C. Clarke Award, Governor General’s Award, the PEN Pinter Prize, the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She was presented with the Companion of Honor award—given for achievements in the arts, literature, science, and politics—by Queen Elizabeth, making Atwood only the third Canadian to receive the honor. Atwood is a founder of the Writers’ Trust of Canada and a founding trustee of the Griffin Poetry Prize. She is also a popular personality on Twitter, with over two million followers.