This article was written by my daughter, Kristin Floress, Ph.D. Kristin is an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, College of Natural Resources. I was SO jealous that she was meeting Margaret Atwood. Thanks, Kristin, for sharing your experience!

Lunch and Converstion with Margaret Atwood

 Margaret Atwood has been one of my favorite authors since I was a teenager.  Her first book I read was The Edible Woman . Given to me by a family friend who is really more like family (Hi, Auntie Worl!), I still have this paperback, and re-read it, as I do many books by favorite authors, every year or so.  I have read countless other books and short stories she has authored, and plan on exploring some of her husband’s (Graeme Gibson) work in the future. 

So why am I telling you all of this?  Because not only do I love Atwood’s work, but I was lucky enough to be able to have lunch with Margaret and her husband at the Aldo Leopold Foundation in Baraboo, Wisconsin.    One of my graduate students works there, and one of the Foundation’s employees had invited Atwood to visit the Foundation’s Legacy Center – until recently the top rated LEED certified building in the U.S. – while she was in nearby Madison for Earth Week festivities.  Atwood accepted, and she and her husband toured the grounds, met Nina Leopold, Aldo’s daughter, and enjoyed (ahem) lunch with me and ten or so other very lucky people. 

Atwood’s most recent novels are Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. Dystopian novels, they are “sidequels” set in the not-so-distant future.  Environmental degradation, genetically modified organisms, and the people involved in trying to save (or not) some semblance of quality human life are the general plot lines,  but this still didn’t prepare me for my first glance of Atwood; she was holding a massive bundle of the invasive garlic mustard which she had ripped out during her morning walk on the Foundation’s land. 

Lunch was incredible.  Margaret and Graeme were both delightful, though I was embarrassed I had not ever read any of Gibson’s work.  More embarrassing was the admonishment I received from Atwood.  When I learned her father was an entomologist,  I remembered the father character in her novel Cat’s Eye, who was an – you guessed it! – entomologist.  Of course, I had to ask if the character in the book was inspired by her father.  I proceeded to be schooled about the difference between fiction and non-fiction, and Atwood pointed out that, these days, if you write fiction people think you are really trying to tell your own story, but if you write non-fiction people assume you are lying.  Of course, she said this much more humorously than I can replicate, and I somewhat masochistically enjoyed the whole experience.  If you have never heard Atwood speak, she has a lovely, quiet, and soothing voice – the perfect pitch at which to serve up sarcasm. 

I recommend any of Atwood’s books.  Some of her older ones will be a tough read for those who can’t imagine what life might have been like 30 or 40 years ago, but I’ve always enjoyed them.  But if you are thinking about reading one for book club, you should definitely read the sidequels.  They meet everyone’s favorite requirements for book club fare: thought provoking, incredible prose, and potentially depressing

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