Annual Teachers' Convention 2021

MARGARET ATWOOD has long been a literary titan, but “current events have polished the oracular sheen of her reputation” (The New Yorker). With her 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale adapted into a fifteen-time Emmy Award-winning television series, and its sequel, The Testaments, winning the 2019 Booker Prize, Atwood’s sharp eye is more crucial—and prescient—than ever.
QPAT is extremely pleased to have Margaret Atwood as the main keynote speaker for our 2021 Annual Convention. Mrs. Atwood can speak on a wide range of issues relating to literature, social activism, political engagement, the creative process, the artist’s role in society, technology and art, and, of course, her own accomplished body of work. Her pithy observations and witty comments enlighten and challenge audiences to think critically about our relationship to words and language. “The answers you get from literature,” she has said, “depend on the questions you pose.”
Atwood is the author of more than fifty volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction. She is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible
Woman, The Robber Bride, The Blind Assassin, Oryx and Crake, and The Year of the
Flood. The Oryx and Crake trilogy, in particular, is being adapted into an HBO TV series by celebrated filmmaker Darren Aronofsky. To date, Atwood’s body of work has been published in more than 40 languages, including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish, Korean, Icelandic and Estonian. Atwood has also won many international literary awards, including the prestigious Booker Prize, Arthur C. Clarke Award, Governor General’s Award, the PEN Pinter Prize, the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She was presented with the Companion of Honour award—given for achievements in the arts, literature, science, and politics—by Queen Elizabeth, making Atwood only the third Canadian to receive the honour. Atwood is a founder of the Writers’ Trust of Canada and a founding trustee of the Griffin Poetry Prize. She is also a popular personality on Twitter, with over two million followers.