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Coming soon: The Handmaid’s Tale graphic novel

At long last, the graphic novel of The Handmaid’s Tale is to be released March 26, 2019 by Penguin Random House. It is illustrated by Canadian artist Renee Nault.

The Handmaid's Tale (Graphic Novel) by Margaret Atwood

New Year’s Honours 2019 includes Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood has joined an elite group of 65 people from the commonwealths in the Order of the Companions of Honour, part of the British honours system presented by the queen.

The Companion of Honour is a “special award granted to those who have made a major contribution to the arts, science, medicine, or government lasting over a long period of time.” [More here]

Atwood honored by Equality Now

At Equality Now’s fourth annual Make Equality Reality gala on December 3, 2018 in Los Angeles, Margaret Atwood was honored for “her longtime advocacy of women’s rights.”

Variety reports that, in her speech at the gala, Atwood said, “Enforced pregnancy is a form of slavery. It is time it’s recognized as such.” A while discussing the importance of hope, THR quotes Atwood remarking: “It’s not enough just to hope. You actually then have to do something other than hoping.”

Equality Now and supporters seek to challenge and defeat repressive laws regarding women’s rights, including sex trafficking, sexual violence, and ritual genital mutilation through an international network of activists.

Sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale coming September 2019

If you’re like us, you’ve been dying to know what happens to Offred after the book leaves off and how future historians got a hold of Offred’s story. After 35 we will finally get some answers as a sequel is coming. It will be called The Testaments and will take place 15 years after The Handmaid’s Tale left off. Atwood tells us that the story will be told by three female characters, and the publisher promises that “the book answers the question that has tantalized readers for decades: What happens to Offred?”

Read more at NPR.

Also, cheers to Stephen Colbert for his quip: “Margaret Atwood is writing a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, and Donald Trump is almost finished with the prequel.”

New Atwood Poem “Update on Werewolves”

Just posted today on Literary Hub and it’s amazing and right on time–

Update on Werewolves

In the old days, all werewolves were male.
They burst through their bluejean clothing
as well as their own split skins,
exposed themselves in parks,
howled at the moonshine.
Those things frat boys do.

Went too far with the pigtail yanking—
growled down into the pink and wriggling
females, who cried Wee wee
wee all the way to the bone.
Heck, it was only flirting,
plus a canid sense of fun:
See Jane run!

But now it’s different:
No longer gender specific.
Now it’s a global threat.

Long-legged women sprint through ravines
in furry warmups, a pack of kinky
models in sado-French Vogue getups
and airbrushed short-term memories,
bent on no-penalties rampage.

Look at their red-rimmed paws!
Look at their gnashing eyeballs!
Look at the backlit gauze
of their full-moon subversive halos!
Hairy all over, this belle dame,
and it’s not a sweater.

O freedom, freedom and power! 
they sing as they lope over bridges,
bums to the wind, ripping out throats
on footpaths, pissing off brokers.

Tomorrow they’ll be back
in their middle-management black
and Jimmy Choos
with hours they can’t account for
and first dates’ blood on the stairs.
They’ll make some calls: Good-bye.
It isn’t you, it’s me. I can’t say why.
They’ll dream of sprouting tails
at sales meetings,
right in the audiovisuals.
They’ll have addictive hangovers
and ruined nails.

Northwestern University has chosen The Handmaid’s Tale as its One Book selection for 2018-2019

Every entering freshman to Northwestern University this fall will receive their own copy of The Handmaid’s Tale and will be exposed to a year full of events related to the book. (For context, in the 2017-2018 school year, there were 91 different events on campus related to the One Book selection– this year promises to be as robust, if not more so!)

Atwood will be at Northwestern to give keynote talks on October 30, 2018, a talk each on both the Chicago and the Evanston campuses, where One Book Faculty Chair Helen Thompson also plans to ask Atwood questions about “The Handmaid’s Tale, its recent television adaptation, and its centrality to the current cultural moment.”

For more information on Northwestern’s One Book program, see its webpage here.

Margaret Atwood to receive Adrienne Clarkson Prize for Global Citizenship

Margaret Atwood will receive yet another prestigious prize, this one symbolizing her place not just as one of the most treasured and visionary writers of our time, but as an activist and environmentalist as well. This honor, the Adrienne Clarkson Prize for Global Citizenship, was established by the Institute for Canadian Citizenship in 2016 and is to be awarded each year to a leader who “has demonstrated a steadfast commitment to the societal ideals of belonging, tolerance, and respect.”

In a press statement, former governor-general and prize namesake Adrienne Clarkson said, “We want to honour this remarkable citizen of Canada for all she has done in her personal and professional life to make us aware that we are citizens of a country like Canada and a planet that is our precious Earth. In her brilliant writing career and her personal activism locally, nationally, and internationally, she is a dynamic force in the world today.”

Atwood will be presented with the prize on September 26 at the closing event of 6 Degrees Toronto, “a three-day conversation on citizenship and inclusion.” Ticket and organization information can be found here. Read more about the prize here.

Hulu has ordered a third season of The Handmaid’s Tale

Hulu announced May 2 that the show will be returning for a third season, only two weeks into the second. Oh, June, will we ever get to see you make it to Canada?