Margaret Atwood

Several letters :)

More like a type: women who make a career out of telling other women they shouldn't have careers. Also the Shelley Winter character in the splendid film Night of the Hunter (Robert Mitchum's best role, IMHO)

As they already know some science, show them some brain-science and evo-devo studies - folks studying the inherent human story-telling "platform." We tell stories because we're human. The novel appears to be the most brain-intensive media form - second only to being there.

Lots of thoughts on that! I wrote Oryx and Crake before this wave set in, but there were a number in the 20th C. However, turn-of-century often causes folks to wonder where we're going, and how they themselves might behave if they find themselves in a bad version of There. And Climate Change and the resulting storms and floods, and the threats to the biosphere.. young people are attuned to all of that.

Hello: We are all telling stories to ourselves all the time, if it's only the story of our own life (and we're constantly editing that!) The brain folks are now telling us that memory evolved not to remind us ofthe past but to help us prepare for the future. That is one of the roles that story telling plays. Also, we are always seeking answers to those ultimate questions: who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going? Why are we here? That adult -to-small-child response - Just Because, Now Stop Asking- never does seem to satisfy us. Telling the stories that will help us make it through: yes. A worthy task. First, Know Your Mushrooms.

I suppose just being alive, knowing people, watching how they interact.. listening to men telling stories about friends they had when they were younger. That mix of bonding and competition.

Thank you! I think Snowman did really love her at the time. But he was very young and easily distracted. Would Romeo and Juliet have stayed the course into middle age, had fate not been malign? Young emotions are intense and genuine but not always lasting. Hardly ever. (Snif, it's sad.)

Hello: I grew up among the biologists and almost became one, so it wasn't too much of a stretch; but I tried to keep up via New Scientist, Discover, Scientific American, etc. We are launching a FlipBoard shortly that will have a bunch of background pieces on it.

Hello: Canadian is one of my defining adjectives, but I don't always write about Canada. Your students might like to listen to a You Tube called Canada's Really Big by the Arrogant Worms. Woman writers: certainly more accepting than 1961. Maybe less accepting in some genres than it should be. But women read a high percentage of fiction, and much of it it is by woman writers.

This might seem strange to you, but a person is often afraid of fewer things as they get (shhh!) Older. We know the plot. We know how this is likely to end. As Anita Desai once said, It Is The Cycle Of Life. But apart from that, spiders, if unexpected.