Margaret Atwood: Future Imperfect

Selected Shorts

Symphony Space

Arts, Fiction, Books, Society & Culture

4.4 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2023

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Host Meg Wolitzer presents stories by the incomparable Margaret Atwood, drawn from our archives and a live performance evening hosted by the author. “There Was Once” is a brief satire about the art of writing and the importance of free speech. It’s performed by René Auberjonois, Zach Grenier, and Jane Kaczmarek. “Widows,” performed by Ellen Burstyn, is a delicate and ironic tale in which a recently widowed woman becomes accustomed to her new role. And Atwood is in full dystopian throttle in “Freeforall” where reproductive rights have become a matter of life and death. The reader is Becky Ann Baker. Both “Widows” and “Freeforall” have been published in Atwood’s new collection Old Babes in the Wood: Stories. Portions of Atwood’s onstage talk with fellow writer A.M. Homes are also featured.

Transcript

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0:00.0	On this selected shorts, Margaret Atwood.
0:10.8	She's a literary icon, a dystopian prophet, and a firebrand advocate for free speech.
0:16.0	I'm Meg Wallitzer and don't go anywhere because the Canadian author of a handmade stale
0:20.5	is here.
0:22.5	You're listening to Selected Shorts, where our greatest actors transport us through the
0:26.7	magic of fiction, one short story at a time.
0:39.5	Margaret Atwood doesn't predict the future, she observes the present.
0:43.6	Of course, readers of her prescient speculative fiction, including the handmade stale and
0:47.7	the mad atom trilogy, would be forgiven for thinking otherwise.
0:51.6	But those readers who've been following Atwood for decades will have noticed that her
0:55.0	range is uncommonly broad and deep and that her influence will last, speaking of the
0:59.7	speculative, well into the future.
1:03.3	Selected shorts have the good fortune to host Margaret Atwood at a live show in New York
1:07.1	upon publication of her recent collection, Old Babes in the Wood.
1:11.4	The book brings together her many worlds.
1:14.3	Here's Atwood talking about the collection from the stage at Symphony Space, after giving
1:18.4	the crowd a warning.
1:29.3	So I have to tell you that they provided me with a script and they said I could rewrite
1:36.0	it to suit myself, which I did in him, but my handwriting is somewhat illegible.
1:48.4	So here we go.
1:50.0	Good evening everyone and welcome to Selected Shorts.
1:57.8	Some of you may be most familiar with my novels, but I've also written a lot of short stories,
	...

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