Margaret Atwood attends Calgary literature event to promote memoir

Margaret Atwood attended Calgary's Wordfest on Dec. 10, 2025, promoting her new book, Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts.

Famed author Margaret Atwood spoke to a sold-out crowd in Calgary on Wednesday, one of the main events at the city’s Wordfest event.

The 86-year-old novelist, who has written dozens of fiction and non-fiction novels, short stories and anthologies of poetry, is now promoting her new book called Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts.

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Atwood said the book couldn’t be a biography because “they had to do some research.”

“(For) an autobiography, they still have to do some research amongst their papers,” she said. “There’s 75 boxes of my papers at the visual library. Was I going to go into them? No.

“A memoir is what you can remember.”

She said the book contains a range of those memories.

“You remember stupid things you did, you remember the stupid things other people did – maybe a bit more than the stupid things you did. You remember mean things other people did to you – not so much mean things you did to other people.”

Near-death experiences, narrow escapes and catastrophes are also part of her memoir, Atwood said.

“There are some links with all of that to the actual books that I wrote or that that other person wrote because you can never be in the same room talking to a writer because they’re not writing, they’re representing the write but they are not the writer.

“The good thing about writing is that if you make a horrible mistake and you recognize it, you can throw that part out.”

Atwood said she worked on Book of Lives for about two years before getting into the editing process.

“It was an interesting exercise,” she said of working with her three editors, who were each in different countries.

“The Canadian one wanted the entire life story of Sir John A. Macdonald,” Atwood added.

“The English ones were very helpful by saying things like, ‘That underlined line doesn’t go there.’”

Atwood said the American editor was mainly concerned with “when she got famous.”

“Were you famous then? How about then? Surely you were famous then,” Atwood recalled them saying.

Atwood made headlines in Alberta earlier this year when she spoke out against the provincial government’s ban on certain books in school libraries.

The initial order was for all books containing sexual content, including Atwood’s own The Handmaid’s Tale.

In response, she produced a new short story shortly after the ban was announced at the beginning of the school year.

“They never picked their noses or had bowel movements or zits,” began her story.

“They grew up and married each other and produced five perfect children without ever having sex.”

Atwood said the characters paid no attention to the poor and “forgiving your enemies and such; instead, they practised selfish rapacious capitalism.”

Atwood goes on to say that the duo never die because “who wants to dwell” and they lived happily ever after.

“But while they were doing that The Handmaid’s Tale came true and (Premier) Danielle Smith found herself with a nice new blue dress but no job,” she said.

“The end.”

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The provincial government reviewed its book ban in September, saying the new order would only include texts that contain images or pictures of sexual acts.

The age limit on the previous order was also lifted.

With files from the Canadian Press