Atwood joins Toronto-based storytelling website Wattpad.com

At 72, literary icon Margaret Atwood is still applauding the power of new ideas -- even if they are not her own.

The Booker prize-winning author has been talking a lot lately on Twitter about Wattpad.com, a social-reading website that encourages new writers to tell stories.

In late June of 2012, the website announced that Atwood would post five original poems on the site and judge the final shortlist of a poetry contest later this summer.

Atwood has since said the Wattpad.com unusual publishing model was a key attraction.

Created by Ivan Yuen and Allen Lau, Wattpad.com functions as a go-to place for amateur writers of all ages. Once logged in, they can post short stories, poems and novels, often chapter by chapter, for others to read and critique.

“It’s the best place to discover and share stories,” Yuen has said of his brainchild.

Launched in 2006, Wattpad.com posts 500,000 stories each month by writers, and has posted more than five million stories since its launch. More than nine million visitors also find their way to Wattpad.com each month, many of whom are curious to see how the site’s unfinished postings are progressing.

From poetry to science fiction, stories are voted on each day and appear in Wattpad.com’s “What’s Hot List.”

The website also showcases a “Featured Story List” which promotes content reviewed and approved by Wattpad.com’s staff.

Atwood has credited Wattpad.com for giving writers the freedom to experiment with their craft and help other authors develop their work.

"It's not a new thing; it's an old thing that has come back via the Internet," she said. "The Brontes wrote for one another in their famous little booklets,” Atwood said in press statement issued in June.

“The Edible Woman” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” author also said that she would have “unquestionably” used a site such as Wattpad had existed when she began her writing career.

"You can put your work out without the humiliation of having it in the high school magazine, which is what I did,” Atwood said.

“It doesn't have to be you - you can use a pseudonym and nobody knows who you are and yet they can read your work and give feedback on it," she said.

Atwood also features users’ opinions of this new website on her Twitter page.

“I love @wattpadd! As well as teaching literacy skills, I foster creativity & confidence in my classroom,” tweeted Sooz ‏@soozbear.

“I love Wattpad too,” wrote Trish Edmisten @trishthewriter. “I get on Twitter every week to extol the virtues of connecting with other writers,” she tweeted

Wattpad users are also weighing in on “Thriller Suite,” Atwood’s serial poem that is now featured on the website.

As one young Wattpad user wrote, “This is a great poem, you’ve a really good talent with poetry…I can’t wait to see any other poems you make!”